What is St Luke's Hospice?

St Luke's is a hospice which cares for people aged 18 and above throughout Sheffield who have incurable illnesses. Their aim is always to control the patients symptoms, alleviate pain, and give them the best possible quality of life – all free of charge. It costs £6 million per annum to keep St Luke's open, and government funding, via NHS trusts only provides one third of the funds required, which means the Hospice has to raise a staggering £4 million each year to provide this vital end-of-life care.

This challenge was set up by a St Luke's Supporter who has seen first hand, the amazing care given to patients through St Luke's and whilst donations are now closed we would like to thank all our donators for their wonderful contributions.

Tuesday 31 January 2012

New Year, New Start

The theme this month is to give a new lease of life to something old and tired and destined for the bin…  Don’t throw it away, turn it into something magical and give it a new start for 2012 by putting it on a card! 
We have this wonderful yellow ribbon bundle kindly donated by the lovely ladies at The Ribbon Girl as our prize this month for our favourite entry so its well worth raiding the recycling bins :-) 


This isn't a challenge like some of the others out there in blogland where you recycle an item by turning it into something else - we are strictly a card making challenge site - so whatever you recycle we are looking for you to use it ON A CARD.


It may seem like a tricky challenge until you give it a little thought - I could be as easy as taking an empty cereal box and stamping on the kraft card stock inside, taking a ribbon from an old card or left over Christmas gift, or getting creative with bubble wrap for a fancy inking technique.  I hope this and the fabulous inspiration from the design team gets your creative juices flowing...

Speaking of Design Team, I would also like to welcome a new member this month - Sylvie - otherwise known as Gibmiss has gladly agreed to join us.   Sylvie has been a regular player since day one, and even sends her lovely cards all the way from Gibraltar to us for our sales and her cards are always gorgeous so I'm sure you'll find her inspirational!  Welcome to the team Sylvie :-)


Anne - using wrapping paper, a cracker and old card embelishments
 

Deborah - using wrapping paper and sweet wrappers


Lynne - using wrapping paper inner tube, doily from a party, recycled items from cards and pressies

Jenny - using twine from gift tags

Sylvie - using the back of a paper pack, ribbon from a top

Tara - using a cracker and tissue paper from a gift


So now - it's over to you - go and have a dig around in your drawers and cupboards and let's see what new life you can breathe into your old stuff.  Be sure to tell us what items you've recycled - we're excited to see how creative you can all be....   REMEMBER ONLY CARDS QUALIFY FOR OUR CHALLENGE as we are a CARD MAKING CHALLENGE SITE as the major purpose of this site is to challenge you to make cards and send them to St Luke's to sell for them to raise money for the hospice.


We'll be back in a couple of days with the winners of our let it snow challenge.......




Wednesday 18 January 2012

Recycling Mid Month Inspiration!

We figured that this challenge has a few of our regular players a little stumped, so here we are with a few more ideas to hopefully inspire you.  Using something you thought should be thrown away may at first seem a little daunting, but once you start to play with rubbish, it becomes a little addictive - I am hording allsorts of stuff now and seeing it a whole new light.  Don't forget we have a great prize bundle of ribbons up for grabs so get your recycling bins out and play with your rubbish ;-)




Monday 9 January 2012

December winners

Sorry for the delay ladies, but it's been one of those weekends......

Without further delay - here are our winning entries for our "let it snow" challenge from last month.

Our overall winner, and therefore the winner of that lovely set of Waltzingmouse stamps kindly donated by our DT member Deborah is Loli - we all adored this beautiful sparkly snowflake creation - so elegant and striking.


We have three runners up this month - who all get our St Luke's Lovelies badge to show off.  Firstly Anne - we loved your delicate lacey snowflake design with just a tiny hint of bling.  Mary's frosty ice fairy really stood out to us all - have a look at the face in close up - it's definitely got the chill factor!  And last but by no means least (winners are in order of entry number) Hazel with this delightful frosty scene.  We loved the inky background you created and the strong tree silhouettes.


 Thanks to you all ladies - your winners badges will be winging their way through cyberspace shortly.