Our Little Furry Friends

Hello everyone and welcome to June and a nice long weekend in the UK to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - there are a number of challenges out there to reflect this asking for red, white and blue or something regal so we thought we'd be different and get you to make cards featuring furry animals instead!  It can be any theme you like and can have as many layers as you like for those of you who found last months one layer too daunting!   All we ask is that it features something furry - dogs, cats, monkeys, mice, teddies or even furry monsters if the mood takes you ;-)

This month we have another fantastic set of Waltzingmouse Stamps worth £14.99 up for grabs - the fabulous and extremely useful set of wordy background stamps Text-It  Click the stamp set to link to the store and see all the fabulous projects the DT have created with it.

So are you ready for our inspiration parade (see parades are not just for her Majesty we can all join in!)  We've got a wide variety of furries to inspire you this month:

Anne

Deborah - she likes the theme so made two ;-)

Jenny

Lynne

Sylvie

Tara

Hope that got your mojo flowing as we'd really like to improve on last months low entries - so please tell all your crafty buddies about our challenge :-)

One Layer Month

This month at St Luke's there is only one rule and that is to have no layers on your card - stamp, draw, ink, emboss - whatever technique you fancy  - just do it directly onto the base card.

Now I know for some people a one layer card is a very scary prospect, it was for me when I first started to try, but it does get easier with practice - and you've got a whole month to play along and get in lots of practice and you may even end up as the recipient of this months prize.  We are being sponsored again by the lovely people over at Lili of the Valley and we have a pair of their gorgeous stamps to give away.

 

And so, to the wonderful inspiration parade from the design team - lots of great projects to get your creative juices flowing.

Anne

Anne - she loves one layer so much she did us two this month!

Deborah

is taking a break this month while she unpacks lots of boxes after moving to the USA

Jenny

Lynne

Sylvie

Tara

Tara - I like one layer too so decided to give you double the inspiration!

So now - it's over to you - dare to go one-layer!

Mid Month Inspiration

It seems that our one layer challenge is scaring you all this month - we know it can be scary at first, but trust us, once you break your one layer duck, you'll be making them all the time as they're such fun and so easy and quick once you get to grips with them. 

So, we thought we'd offer a little more inspiration to see if we can tempt a few more of you to play along.  The easiest technique to use if you want to get lots of pattern but keep to one layer is to use masking which Deborah has done one her vibrant card.  Lynne has simply stamped and coloured directly onto her card - it doesn't get much easier than that now does it?  Sylvie stamped a gorgeous image in 3 places on her card in black and added a little colour with promarkers.   I've taken a modern approach and kept it clean and simple with a masked strip for the sentiment across a block print flower stamp.

Deborah

 

Lynne

Sylvie

Tara

Do come and join the fun - you've still got a couple of weeks to perfect your technique.

April Winners and Design Team in Print!

It's time for a couple of announcements here on the St Luke's blog - firstly it's time to announce the winners of our anniversary "bling it up" challenge.

Our overall winner last month was Sian - she definitely met the "bling" brief head on and we loved that she took her inspiration from Jesse J's nails ;-)

Drop me an email Sian with your postal address and I'll get your bumper prize in the post after the bank holiday :-D

Our top 4 last month were, in numerical order:

Gillian - we loved your bling and big fluffy bow

Loli - your faberge style egg was an amazing creation

Vicky - just the sweetest get well soon card

Pauline - the layers of pattern were perfection

Thanks ladies - your blog badges will be emailed to you shortly.


We also have a bit of exciting news about some of the Design Team here at St Luke's - we're in print!!!   Lynne, Jenny and I (Tara) are all featured in the 100th edition of Papercraft Inspirations and we're all pretty excited about being published for the first time so hope you'll indulge us as we shout it from the rooftops ;-)  Here's a link to their beautiful blogs page where you can see a link to our cards that have been featured http://papercraftinspirations.themakingspot.com/blog/issue-100s-beautiful-blogs  and if you want to see us in paper, the magazine will be in your stores on 9th May.

Happy Anniversary to us!

It's our anniversary this month - this little fundraising blog has been going for a whole year and I can't quite believe it!  You've all been wonderfully generous in this last 12 months and we're growing and gaining lots of lovely blog buddies along the way - thank you all!

So, what better way to celebrate an anniversary than with a bit of bling?  So this month we want you to bring out your inner magpie and some sparkle to your creation with gems, glitter, beads or anything shiny :-)   A nice and easy challenge to encourage you all to play along this month - we'd love to celebrate our 1st anniversary by reaching 100 entries.

We have a bumper prize package this month in celebration of our anniversary worth in excess of £50.

It was a little hard to photograph to show it all clearly, so in case you can't make it out, here's a list of everything that is included in the bumper prize package:

A rainbow pack of felt sheets

A ribbon girl kit (yellow)

2 packs of antique gold effect embossed stickers

2 packs of assorted flowers

2 sheets of unmounted fairy and flower rubber stamps

a set of Papermania Christmas cling stamps

a Ladybug Crafts Ink Magnum cling stamp

4 packs of seed beads

a bunch of gold pearl sprays

a bunch of iridescent flower sprays

a bunch of gold leaf sprays

and a perfect Bow Maker MkII

If you need a little inspiration to get your mojo working, then just check out the wonderful creations from our super talented design team:

Anne

Deborah

Jenny

Lynne

Sylvie

Tara

So now it's over to you - we're looking forward to seeing all the sparkle :-)

March Winners

Good morning and Happy Easter to all our lovely followers - hope you are enjoying a fabulous day [and lots of chocolate ;-)  ]

It's been a real challenge picking our winner for last month's spring challenge - we have a record number of entries and they were all just gorgeous - spring certainly seemed to be a popular challenge with you all.  After much deliberation our overall winner is Jakki  with her beautiful soft pink and green card.  The layers are just gorgeous and the sentiment is certainly all about spring!   Jakki wins the magazine and Waltzingmouse stamp set.

For a record number of entries, we also have a record number of runners up who all get our St Luke's Lovelies badge:

All your cards were very different but all made us think of spring so thanks for sharing them with us.  Hope you'll all be back to have a go in our blingy anniversary challenge too.

Spring into Spring!

Hello everyone - hope you all managed to find a little crafty time on your "extra" day yesterday - now it's the 1st of the month so time for a new challenge and this month we're looking for you to spring into Spring!   Anything spring related goes - fresh spring colours, flowers, animals, Easter, mother's day - whatever floats your springtime boat - banish the grey of winter and look forward to the joys of Spring.  

The DT inspiration follows, but first a little update for you...   Unfortunately the total of money raised hasn't gone up much since Christmas as I haven't managed to do a fair this year as yet - the Valentines mini fair St Luke's were organising at The Crucible Theatre was cancelled due to low ticket sales (the fair was an add on to a matinee performance).  St Luke's have a new community fund raising co-ordinator so I am hoping she'll find some more fairs for me to attend very soon.  On the plus side though, I did go and pick up almost 200 hundred new cards that have been donated since the Christmas fair - do accept my apologies if I'm not very speedy in thanking you for your donations - I do this fund raising in my spare time and do work full-time and there is only one of me so I have to fit it in where I can.  I try to get to the hospice once a month to collect all the packages and I then take them home to open, sort, bag and price and resort into categories ready for sales.  I store them all at home too so tend not to collect them too often when I haven't got a fair coming up so I don't run out of room in the spare bedroom for all your generous donations.  I just wanted to give you all a bit more of an idea of what is happening at this end as I know a few people think the hospice does the admin, but to keep their costs down (this is all about raising money for them after all) I am doing it all, so I am sometimes a little slow....  I just don't want you to think that cards aren't arriving or that I'm not grateful - they are and I am soo, so grateful for every card we received - as the challenge has grown it is a little more "admin" than I imagined and I will try to get better and quicker at it!   Do bear with me - if you would like to get confirmation that your cards have arrived, please put a scrap of paper in with them with your blog or email address and I will send you an email to confirm receipt and thanks.

Ok - enough admin, let's get on with the eye candy and the prizes for March - and we have a cracker of a prize this month - a gorgeous and ever so useful set of Waltzingmouse flower stamps (valued at £14.99) generously donated by Clare Brennan, Waltzingmouse owner and I'm throwing in the current edition of PaperCrafts Magazine from the USA which is packed full of amazing inspirational card designs.

You've got until the end of March to play along for the chance to win and winners are decided by the DT team not a random draw so give us your best work - you are free to play along and win the prize whether or not you to choose to donate your cards or not.   In case you're stuck for ideas, here's what the talented DT team have come up with to inspire you - visit our blogs to find out what we used and how we made them:

Anne

Deborah

Jenny

Lynne

Sylvie

 

Tara

So now it's over to you - dig out your spring stash and enter our challenge  and do tell your mates about us too as we'd like to grow our followers and players before our anniversary challenge next month for which we will have a HUGE anniversary prize - just giving you a little advanced heads up ;-)