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.

Friday 31 August 2012

Going for Gold!

Well - with all the Olympic hoo-hah going on in the UK at the moment we couldn't really bring you any other theme than "sports" for this month now could we?  So if you didn't get to tickets to the Olympics (well did anyone???) and are watching them on TV like the rest of us then share your joy of all things sporting with a sport themed card.  Doesn't have to be an Olympic sport - any sport -popular or rare (tiddlywinks anyone???) will do just fine.  Don't just think this is one for the boys either - girls like sports too - I think so far the GIRLS are beating the boys in Team GB in the first few days of the competition so do consider making a girlie sporty card for a little something different.

Our prize this month, from the very generous Claire the designer behind Waltzingmouse stamps is another one of their beautiful stamp sets - Blessed By You which is a really versatile set of images and really useful and gorgeous sentiments.
There will also be your very own card making gold medal in the winners prize package this month - can't promise a medal ceremony though ;-)

So are you ready to get under starters orders?  Then we're off with the design teams sporting inspiration.....









So are you ready to go for gold in our Olympic challenge - no prizes for silver and bronze I'm afraid - just a badge for your blog - so get your competitive scissors, glue and stamps and get crafting to Olympic standards ;-) The judges are waiting with our score cards....


Tuesday 28 August 2012

Quick you're almost out of time........

.........to enter our fabulous "Going for Gold" Challenge here at St Lukes!   We have fabulous stamps and even a gold medal for the winner this month so what are you waiting for???

Anything sporting/Olympic/winning related counts and here's a little inspiration from our DT member Sylvie 



You've got until NOON on Friday to play - that's just 3 days so get your supplies out and join in the golden party - we can't wait to see your entries.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Still time to Go for Gold

Our player numbers are really low this month - just 9 at the time of writing so I wanted to remind you all that we're still here, we have a great Waltzingmouse Stamp set worth £15 as our prize and to go with our theme - your very own cardmaking gold medal!


In case you're struggling with the sporting theme - I thought I'd make a few more cards to try and inspire you.  For my first, I've gone quite literal with a simple football stamp (Stampin Up) and just used the triple stamping and matting technique to add depth and interest - this one took 6 minutes from start to finish - I timed myself!



Now, if you don't have ANY sports related stamps/dies/images, then it's time to think outside the box.  I'm including a card here I made for Jess Ennis - who like me is a Sheffield girl born and bred and we're all so proud of her and our golden post box!  So I made her one of her very own to keep once its returned to Royal Mail red (for those readers outside the UK - the Royal Mail has painted a mail box gold in the home town of every gold medal winner at the Olympics this summer)  I made this one with my silhouette cameo die cutting machine and a few stamps which I embossed in gold onto the black panels.


I am aware that not everyone has fancy die cutting machines though, so wanted to go for something REALLY simple.  For this one, I took a totally non-sports related stamp - one of my TV's from Papersmooches and turned it into a card that fits the theme by creating my own background paper (I just typed a load of sports related words in a word document and made them grey, then typed a big bold sentiment in black to stick over the top.


Hope that acts as a little more inspiration and gives you some ideas to play around with.  We look forward to a rush of entrants over the next couple of weeks.

Tara

Tuesday 7 August 2012

July Winners

Hi folks

It took a lot of deliberation this month to come up with our winners but we eventually managed to get to a consensus!

Our overall winner this month was Mary J who always supports us every month and submits lots of great cards but this one just really nailed the challenge - aren't most teenagers monsters ;-)   The sentiment is spot on for a teenager too and the great CAS design which is out of Mary's comfort zone but again works so well in this context.  The ribbon girl voucher will be winging its way to you shortly Mary - enjoy :-D   [edited - sorry I mixed up last months prize with this - Mary wins the £10 ribbon girl voucher]


Our 3 runners up this month were:

Jayne - we loved this funky girl with her over-buckled boots - this would really appeal to teenagers everywhere I'm sure.


Joyce M created a couple of similar designs but this masculine version really appealed to us - the chevrons are spot on trend too and the colours really work well with this design.


Louise was our final entrant last month and we really loved how she incorporated an itunes gift card into her card design - this would surely satisfy any fussy teenager!


Thanks for joining us ladies.

Hope you're all enjoying our current sporting theme - if you're not on a sporting bent, then think laterally - but as the whole country seems to be going gold medal crazy then surely it's time for you to go for gold too - there will be a medal as well as the standard prize this month ;-)   If you're stuck for ideas, we'll be back next with a little more inspiration for you so on your marks, get set - PRINT!