January 2015 - Rudolph Days Challenge

It is the 25th of the month and you know what that means...Time for the January Rudolph Days Challenge. Here is a quick recap of the new Rudolph Days Rules.

1. Rudolph Days will start monthly on the 25th and will close on the last day of that month.
2. The theme is always Anything Goes, as long as it is Christmas.
3. One entry per person and you just need to enter one Christmas card. (You can have more than one card on your post, but your post will still only count as one entry)
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
5. Prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world.

6. The winner will be selected by random draw and announced on the first day of the following month.

We have two guest designers who have kindly agreed to help me out this month. Many of you know that I moved house two days ago. We are still  busy cleaning etc back at the old house, as the new owners take possession on the 26th. I may not be able to get round to each entry this month, so it is great to have the help of Mary H and Kath K  as my guest designers!

Mary H of Carolina Cards has this beautiful Christmas card to inspire you. Pop over to her blog to see a wonderful write up of her creative techniques. Mary always gives great step by step directions on just how she creates her cards

Kath K of  Handmade by Kath   has some more inspiration to share, with this wonderful Christmas Card.

 Pop on over to Kath's blog for additional details and even more Christmas inspiration, Kath's  goal this year is to make 10 Christmas cards every month! This should be fun to view.

Here is my Rudolph Days card for this month. I made it ahead and auto scheduled this post as I do not know if my internet will be hooked up and working on time. I made this card from a topper I purchased at my local papercrafts store. They were selling off hand coloured toppers from their card classes! I picked up a few to use during the move. At 50 cents a topper, they were a great bargain!

I set it on a snippet of burlap and fringed the edges for a bit of texture. The poinsettias are ones I picked up at Michaels a couple of years ago. I always stock up on embellishments when they have the after Xmas blow out sales.
The sentiment is a rub on from my stash,  and the silver glitter holly is a new die I got for Xmas.
Background papers are snippets from my stash. Sorry that I do not have the manufacturers names for everything...I made the cards a couple of weeks ago and have packed my craft room completely now., so have no way to look them up.  I should have thought to make them down on a sticky note as I was creating!

The January Rudolph Days prize is this Memory Box MERRY die. Good luck!

Christmas Card Club Challenges #2 - The Real Reason For The Season

Christine of Christine's Cards and Crafts chose the theme of The Real Reason For The Season, for our Christmas Card Club this fortnight.

These are always such wonderful cards to make.  I have certain friends and family members who look forward to receiving a religious card.  Luckily, I had some extras of this nativity ornament image from a card I made in 2014. I matted it with a black doily but if you look close  you will see that I mounted that on the card backwards! Ah...the joys of moving and being a bit overtired...teehee
I don't know the manufacturer of the red dotted paper as it was a VOS snippet.

A couple of Michaels poinsettias with a quick lick of Wink of Stella on the smaller ones, a preprinted sentiment from my stash, a few jewels, and it was done. I am trying hard this year to make flatter cards this year. Just trying hard to keep aware of the allowed widths for regular postage! Hopefully this one makes it throw the width tester.  I was not able to test it myself as I have already packed my postage width testing tool.

A quick reminder to everyone that Rudolph Day Challenges will run on this blog starting Jan 25, and will close on the last day of the month. Look forward to seeing your entries. Winner will be announced on Feb 1st.
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I am entering this card in the following challenges:

1. Christmas Card Club - The Reason For the Season
2. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets (the image was stamped last year on snippets of cardstock...I stamped off several of this one)

Rudolph Day Challenge

As many of you already know, Sarn at Stamping For Pleasure wanted to step back from sponsoring the Rudolph Day challenge. We all have had so much fun there creating Christmas cards every month We were really able to be prepared for the Christmas season.

I offered to take over the challenge as I did not want to see it end. I have made so many lovely friends there and wanted to keep those friendships blooming.

So Rudolph Days will continue on this blog, much the same as it was in the past on Sarn's...with one exception. I am going to return to the one card rule Sarn originally used. You will only have to make one card to enter and of course only one entry per person!

I have collected some lovely Xmas stamps, and even some Memory Box Xmas dies, for prizes this year. We will start off the January challenge with this Memory Box Die, MERRY.

Here is a brief recap of the rules:

1. Rudolph Days will start monthly on the 25th and will close on the last day of the month.
2. The theme is always Anything Goes, as long as it is Christmas.
3. One entry per person and you just need to make one Christmas card.
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
4. Prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world.
5. The winner will be selected by random draw and announced on the first day of the following month.

I am hoping Rudolph Days keeps the friendly atmosphere it has so enjoyed in the past. I do not want it to become that type of challenge where you drop off your card and flee. I envision it remaining the type of challenge where you meander through the other entries, leaving some comments for them when possible.

I can tell you that in most cases, the blogger you leave a comment for eventually returns a comment on your post too. Rudolph Days is just that kind of challenge!

You can submit your January entry between Jan25th and Jan31st. Winner will be announced Feb 1st .
Here is a photo of the January prize.

Off to figure out how to load the linky tool to my blog! See you all on the 25th...

Christmas Card Club - Clean and Simple in Red, Green and White

Carol at CM Design chose Clean and Simple in Red, Green and White for our first 2015 Christmas Card Club challenge.

I am hoping that I kept this card Clean and Simple enough. I had originally planned to place the image on the red diecut mat and then mount that directly on the white card.  But the white card was 5 1/2 inches square and the red mat looked too small. I then got the idea to add the green glitter mat but then realized the only snippet I had was not large enough. So I cheated and trimmed the card base down.

Wish I had thought of that before I added the green! Think I would have liked it better with the red mat sitting on the trimmed down white card. I did think about prying the green piece off but decided that seemed too likely to lead into bending or tearing the card...oh well...best laid plans and all that!!

The image is a Bugaboo digital image, coloured with copics and a quick dash of some clear Wink of Stella over the shoe stripes. heel, and the center of the poinsettia. The red mat is Spellbinders Parisian
and the snippet of green glitter paper is DCWV. Red gems from stash.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

1. Christmas Card Club - Clean and Simple Red, green and White
2. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets
3. Catch the Bug - January Anything Goes ( I used a bugaboo image)

PS  Stay tuned Jan 5th for a post on this blog, outlining the  Rudolph Day Challenge Rules and a photo of January's prize...a lovely Memory Box Christmas die.