Thursday, 20 November 2025

You Have (Christmas) Mail

 

Time Out Challenge #302 has just gone live and it's our last Pick 2 Challenge for 2025!  


The concept of a Pick 2 Challenge is obvious - we give you 6 word prompts to choose from and you use at least 2 to inspire your creation!  To be clear, you can pick more than 2 if you like - all 6 if you really want a challenge but just make sure to pick at least 2!

The Word Prompts for this challenge are

Emboss, Movie, Nature, Corner, White, Sparkle

You can interpret these words any way you like but please explain if it isn't obvious and please remember we only allow a total of 5 challenges - ours plus 4 others!  I hope you enjoy our challenge and that you can take a little Time Out and join us for some fun!  

Challenge #302 is generously being sponsored by Poppystamps and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $20 credit to their store!  


The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Margreet Burger of Margreet's Scrapcards our winner of Challenge #297!  Be sure to check out the Time Out Blog to see how how Margreet and my talented team mates were inspired by these six words!

Since this is the last Pick 2 Challenge of the Year, I wanted to use all 6 prompts but I wanted to make it a Christmas card and movie had me stumped - all the Christmas movies I could think of (Elf, the Santa Chronicles, The Santa Clause) all seemed to require red and/or green and I wanted to keep it white on white!  In hindsight I could just as easily have made a white elf (these words are only meant to inspire not restrict) but that didn't occur to me (blame it on a MIA mojo)!  In the end I changed tactic and tried to think about any movie (I started with ones I own on DVD and enjoy watching again and again) and finally You Have Mail popped into my head ... which was perfect because I have loads of NBUS Mail stash!  So now I had my movie, it was just as a matter of how the other 5 prompts could work!

I began with a dry embossed background panel (Cuttlebug Snowflakes) to add some background interest and use that word emboss!   

I made up an envelope (NBUS Poppystamps Large Stitched Envelope and Postage) then cut a deckle edged note to slip inside it and tried the word "joy" (Sizzix Holiday Words Script By Tim Holtz) cut from white glitter card stock for some sparkle!

I wasn't happy with it (way too plain) so embossed the notelet with some background text using an NBUS stamp (Kaisercraft Script Texture) with Weiße Diamenten embossing Powder) - more emboss and sparkle!   

It still needed something more and as I wanted some nature I added a flower spray from another NBUS set (Spellbinders Sitting Pretty) cut from white and glitter card stock.  

To finish it all off, I added a "25" to the smaller of the 2 postage stamps (from the envelope set) and added it in the top right corner!

Then the design seemed a bit unbalanced so I added a "Sending" sentiment (Simon Says Stamp) cut from more white glitter card stock (yet more sparkle).  I should have stacked it as it's lost on this embossed background but it was very late, I was tired and TBH I couldn't be bothered (I almost always regret these decisions the next morning)!  Still, overall I was pleased with this card (and lately that's not often been the case) and I managed to use all 6 word prompts!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #80 - NBUS Envelope, Text Stamp, Flowers;
Triple B November Challenge - Blooms (no Birds or Butterflies);
Cut it Up Challenge #343 - Favourite Colour (I love white esp the challenge of only using white);


Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Thursday, 6 November 2025

On Your Guard

Another fun challenge has just gone live at Time Out Challenges - we would like to see how you are inspired by Your Favourite Holiday to Celebrate!



Challenge #301 is generously being sponsored by Angie Blom and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $20 credit to their store!  


The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Stef Perry our winner from Challenge #296!   You can check out how Stef and my talented team mates were inspired by their favourite holiday celebrations over on the Time Out Blog!

I do get inspired by the Christmas season and I find myself buying a lot of Christmas stash - usually at a rate faster than I can possibly use it!  This cute little Danische Garde set from Charlie & Paulchen fell into my shopping basket about a year ago and I finally got around to using it!  It reminded me of the tin soldier from the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale - which makes me think of Christmas for some reason ... and the set came with this "God Jul" sentiment so I guess I'm not alone in that!

The die cuts can be snipped apart and layered up - the soldier was a fiddly because of his size but I was able to build up the guardhouse easily - giving the little soldier a comfortable nook to stand in!  I used a brick embossing folder (Tim Holtz brickwork) for the whitewashed castle wall behind the guardhouse.  

Of course I couldn't resist adding glossy accents to his shoes and bearskin hat!

What is your favourite holiday celebration and how does it inspire you?  We hope you can take some Time Out and come play cards with us - we'd love to see your creations in our gallery!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge 80 - NBUS Charlie & Paulchen Danische Garde;

ABC Christmas Challenge October - U for Uncluttered and V for Vertical;

Shopping Our Stash Challenge #560 - A few of My Favourite Things are die cutting, embossing folders and glossy accents;


A Cut Above November Challenge - Anything Goes with a Die Cut;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Saturday, 1 November 2025

Snow Business

 

Sparkles Christmas Challenge 178 has just gone live and it was my turn to choose the theme and I chose Festive Wear for the month of November - mostly because I was itching to use this NBUS die set (Papertrey Ink Build-A-Hat)!

I found this sheet of grey plaid among my many Christmas paper pads and teamed it with some snippets of greys left over from cutting card bases.  

I used the smaller snowflake from the Build-A-Hat set to spell out "SNOW" (MB Vintage Varsity Alphabet) and a Craft Emotions Lower Case Alphabet die to spell out "business"!

do hope you are inspired by the rest of the Design Team at the Sparkles Christmas Challenge and can join us with some festive wear of your own - not long now till Christmas!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #80 - NBUS "Christmas" sentiment;


Jingle Belles - Dashing Through the Snow;

Merry Little Christmas #65 - Anything Christmas Goes;



Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and should be able to find you!


Kate