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.......

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 ;-)

Anne - using a gift card holder and ribbon

Jenny - using waste packaging and cellophane

Tara - using straws and a bottle top

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.

New Challenge Starts Soon

Please note - the January challenge goes live in the early hours of the 3rd January - please pop back then to check it out.  

Happy New Year from all the St Luke's DT - we look forward to sharing an exciting year of challenges with you all in 2012 :-D

I'll leave you with our traditional New Year rhyme - I think it may be a "Yorkshire" thing but as a child (the youngest in my family) I was always made to go outside just before midnight with a lump of coal and I had to knock on the door, say the poem, and "bring the New Year in"  so...

 Happy New Year, Happy New Year

Plenty of money and lots of good cheer

A horse and a gig

And a big fat pig to kill next year

Hole in me stocking, hole in me shoe

Please can you spare a penny or two

If you haven't a penny, a ha'penny will do

If you haven't a ha'penny then God bless you!

at that point I was allowed in and got a coin in exhange for the coal (I think the coal represented being able to keep warm all year) and allowed back into the warmth!   Therefore I wish you all warmth, wealth and happiness (the coal, the money and the cheer) and whatever the horse, gig and pig (I think that's for enough food) are meant to represent.  And of course - our extra wish - lots of creativity ;-)

A bit strange I know, but they do say up here that "there's nowt so queer as folk!"

Do share your New Year traditions with us in your comments :-)

Let it Snow!

This month our challenge is "Let it snow" so we're looking for snowflakes, icicles, polar bears, penguins, snowmen - anything goes as long as its cold and frosty so plenty of opportunities to get your glitter and crystals out :-)

Our prize this month has kindly been donated by our very own DT member Deborah  - thanks so much Deborah :-)  As Deborah, like me, is a huge Waltzingmouse fan, she's decided to offer another one of Claire's wonderful sets - Dainty Doilies which is  a wonderfully useful and versatile set.

We'll be back to announce November's winners in a few days.

So time for the DT eye candy - the team have come up with some amazing and varied cards for us this month.

Anne

Deborah

Jenny

Lynne

Tara

So now we've inspired you - get out your dies, snowflakes and glitter and let's get a chill on and hope that the snow just stays on our cards and not on the pavement....

Now that our challenge is growing - which is wonderful - we've decided to set a limit to the number of entries to make it fair for everyone - so from this month onwards you can enter a MAXIMUM of 6 ENTRIES per month.  Entries over and above 6 will be deleted.  I do hope this won't offend anyone or put you off from playing along, but we do need to try to keep a balance.

Mid-month Update

Hi everyone

Just to let you know that there will be no mid-month inspiration post this month - sorry but with the countdown to Christmas now getting ever closer, the DT and I are rather busy.  I will get around all your entries to comment before the end of the month but it might not be until the Box Day lull.....  Please accept my apologies.

Also, as I normally prepare the posts to go live at midnight each month, giving that at the end of this month that would be with the chimes of Big Ben, I'm afraid I may be a little too drunk to see the keyboard....  So with that in mind and to give us all a little longer to prepare our DT projects, the new challenge will be going live on Monday 3rd January.  Do come back then to check out our new challenge - it's a good one to start off the New Year ;-)

In the meantime, can I take this opportunity to thank you all for playing along so far, and to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a great slide into a Happy and Healthy New Year :-D

Tara
and the St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge Design Team

November Winners

Sorry it's taken a while to announce but with Christmas coming it's getting quite busy in our house so I've been struggling to find time to collate all our votes.

Our winner this month was Sasha for her wonderful white on white layered snowflake - we just love the intricate yet simplistic design - and of course all the glitter ;-)  I will be in touch via email for your details Sasha so I can get your LOTV stamps in the post - hope you have fun with them!

Choosing our runners up this month was very difficult as we had so many entries - Hazel gets a special mention for an astonishing 18 cards - well done Hazel!

Our runners up this month were:

Sylvia-Anne - who made great use of snippets to create this gorgeous wreath. 
Vicky with this delightful little bird and luscious ribbon.

Caroline with her delightful little bear - we all loved your cool colour combo.
Sue produced a lovely set of cards all in traditional green and red which are just so simple and elegant.

 

We loved all of Mary J's entries but this little guy with his rather sad looking bear left out in the snow really caught our eye.

 

Blog badges will also be winging their way to you ladies in due course.  Thanks so much for all your wonderful entries - hope you'll all play with our snowy challenge too ;-)