January Rudolph Days Challenge and Meet The Design Team

Welcome to the first Rudolph Days Challenge of 2016!

As always, here is a recap of the rules

1. The Rudolph Days Challenge will start each month on the 25th, and will close at midnight PST, 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 or Christmas project.
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
5. Your card (or Christmas project) should not have been previously posted to your blog. It should be posted to your blog during the current months Rudolph Days Challenge, (between the 25th and last day of the current month)
6. Please link back to or at least mention, the Rudolph Days Challenge.
7.  Prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world.

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

It is the start of a New Year and we have some new additions to the Rudolph Days Challenge. We have lots of creative inspiration for you this month and without further adieu I am pleased to reveal the first four members of my design team. They will be our Designers for the January, March, and May, Rudolph Days Challenges. Hope you will give them a hearty welcome too!

Kathy Kirby of Purple Princess Diaries

I'm a fiftysomething Craft Obsessive, who started crafting following a chance visit to a rubber stamp store in Minneapolis, a number of years ago. I now avidly collect (and actually TRY to use) all thing stamp and papercraft related. 
     
In 2008, I joined an on-line crafting forum and made friends with all sorts of crafters who've all been so helpful to me on my creative journey, and without whom I might still just be embellishing envelopes.
     
I'm thrilled to be a member of this Design Team and encouraged to make projects for one of my favourite occasions - CHRISTMAS!

Kathy has been busy making tags to share with us this month. Beautiful, festive
 Christmas tags, with a lovely sparkle and glimmer.  
                                       

Here is a wee close up...

Berina Febin of  Moxie Craftie Blog

I'm Berina. I'm from India,currently living in Park Ridge, New Jersey with my husband and 2 year old daughter. I've been crafting in some way or another, right from my childhood. I used to make
simple greeting cards for my family, learned to make both fabric as well as paper flowers, tried my hand at embroidery, learned to crochet and make some jewelry.

I started blogging only a few years ago and from there on, there's so stopping. Now, I spend most of my crafting time on making cards. But I do take time to try other crafts too. I like to experiment with new styles and techniques. I love to learn new stuff and get creative. I create CAS cards as well as layered cards, and everything in between. Like most of us, I find crafting to be a real stress buster.

Berina has made a stamped kraft card. I think you will agree that those pine boughs and pinecones are so lovely!

Jane Willis of Onions and Paper Blog

Jane Willis here. I live in Hampshire, England, with my husband. I have two grown daughters and four grandchildren. I've been a crafter all my life, and a papercrafter since I discovered stamping about 20 years ago.

I also enjoy cooking, and entering (and winning) competitions. Until recently, I ran a small business producing a magazine for competition lovers.

My husband and I love to travel, and you will often see recipes and crafty makes that have been inspired by our travels on my blog, Onion and Papers. 

Jane has made up an adorable card featuring two very full wee birds.

Sam /Whisper of Whisper Cards

Hi, I'm Sam, a stay at home Mum to a nine year old son and a rescue Labrador Collie Cross dog, Clio. I started crafting 10 years ago, when I moved to a new area and joined the local card making group. I'm now on the Design Team for Penny Black & More. If you take a look at my blog, you will know why!!!
Besides crafting, I love travelling. 

Sam's card has an adorable collection of creatures just waiting for Christmas!

                                      

My card is a fairly simple, quick make. I picked up a set of blackboard tags on clearance, just after Xmas last year.  I had two Tattered Lace Holly Flourish Diecuts in my already cut out files  and positioned one of them to hide the hole in the tag! I added what I think is the last of a VOS cardinal and then snipped a few sprigs of holly off the second diecut and tucked it behind the bird. Hopefully, that counts as my snippet for Pixies Crafty Workshop this week. I often snip diecuts apart and save the wee leftover bits in plastic sleeves in my bits files.

If you look very carefully, there is an acrylic silver stamped snowflake just behind the bird, holly, and tag. The premade corner bling is from the local dollar store. It was fun to use and easy to place. Don't know the name of the DP as it got separated from the paper pad quite some time ago! I'm sure you all know how that can happen!

I kept the inside very simple. The sentiment is from an old Christmas card and the silver snowflakes are Bo Bunny Rub-ons called Pretty Flaky.

I am entering my card at Di's...Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets 

The January Rudolph Days Challenge prize is this Memory Box Snowflake Love Pendant Die.

Christmas Card Club - Sleigh theme

This fortnight it is my turn to chose the Christmas Card Club theme. I chose a sleigh theme thinking it would be fun to see whether the cards would feature Santa and his sleigh or otherwise.

I was one of those who chose the non Santa version.  I had this Stamendous Sleigh Bells, horse and sleigh stamp in mind when I chose my theme. I stamped off and coloured up a few of these images a couple of years ago. I made the first one up into a pink coloured card which was featured on my blog here.

This time, I decided to play up the crimson colours of the ladies gown. I liked the bits of crimson peeking through the filigree work of the Spellbinders Radiant Rectangles die and decided to play up a bit of contrast by adding an aqua glitter paper mat.

I have now decided that I love aqua, silver and crimson together and may just pop out to the after Christmas sales and pick up some aqua baubles for my tree and house decor next year. I have used red, silver and white baubles for several years now and feel like a change. Who new a mere card could inspire making changes there...lol

I got a wee bit carried away with mats and added another crimson mat and then placed that on a silver glitter mat. I kept those extra mats very simple as I did not want to take away from the pretty cutwork design on the main image.

Sadly, the weight of this card keeps wanting to pull the tent fold open. I have creased and recreased with my bone folder but nothing helps. If anyone knows a way to prevent this from occuring agai, please share!  I have decided this Christmas card will have to become a String Card...you know...the kind that has to be sent to a person who hangs their Christmas cards on a bit of string or beaded wire. Luckily, I have some people in my family who display their cards like this, so I am saved!

I kept the inside quite plain. Here is a little peek...

If you would like to view any of my fellow Christmas Card Club members works, their names and hyperlinks are on my right sideboard.You will not be disappointed as you will find some beautiful cards awaiting you. If you are interested in joining the Club, drop me a comment or an email.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

1. Christmas Card Club - sleigh theme
2. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets (the cri,mson mat)c

January Rudolph Days Reminder and Prize Sneak Peek

Just a quick reminder that the Rudolph Days Challenge resumes on January 25. You have until midnight on Jan 31st submit an entry.

Here is a recap of the rules.

1. The Rudolph Days Challenge will start each month on the 25th, and will close at midnight PST, 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 or Christmas project.
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
5. Your card (or Christmas project) should not have been previously posted to your blog. It should be posted to your blog during the current months Rudolph Days Challenge, (between the 25th and last day of the current month)
6. Please link back to or at least mention, the Rudolph Days Challenge.
7.  Prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world.

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

2016 will bring some fun changes to our challenge. You may remember that I had a design team call on my November post.  I had 17 enquires, and rather than have to pick and chose, I accepted them all.  I have divided the year in half and created a team for each 6 month term.  These teams were further divided into an A and B grouping...which leaves us with 4 designers for each month of 2106 with a bonus designer for the final month of the year!

I am looking forward to the cards they create and of course looking forward to seeing  all your creations as well.

The January Rudolph Days Challenge prize will be this Memory Box  Snowflake Love Pendant Die.

Christmas Card Club - Festive Foods Theme

This is the first Christmas Card Club challenge of 2016. We are a group of card making bloggers who make a Xmas card every two weeks. We all take turns choosing the theme, and it really is a lot of fun.  I have all the members listed on my sideboard...drop by and check out their cards too if you like. If you are interested in joining us, let me know.

This fortnight's theme was chosen by Margaret of Dutchess blog. Margaret always has the most gorgeous cards on her blog and I think she is the diecut queen. Her layered cards are gorgeous!

My card today contains two festive food items that bring me warm childhood Christmas memories. My Mum always had a candy wreath on the front door. A friend of hers made them and took orders. The candies were wrapped in cello and each one was tied onto the wire frame. A wee pair of scissors hung from a bow and you used them to take a candy off...what a treat!

My DP is Martha Stewart and is just like the candies on our first wreaths. The pink snowflake DP is a couple of years and is a snippet from a scrapbook page. I managed to find just the right shade of green and pink card for the  mats and the snowflakes... That was quite lucky as usually I can never find just the right shade...lol I am sure you all know what I mean!

The snowflakes are Impression Obsession...these are my fave snowflake dies. I had some K & Co baubles and I pulled them apart to make embellies for the center of the snowflakes. Once assembled, I coated them quite generously with Stardust Stickles.

The Gingerbread images are Studio G, I think.  Years ago, I corralled my teensy stamps into baseball card sleeves, I was not a card maker then and so did not think to save the packaging that advised of the manufacturer.  This little couple are actually two stamps and I just lined them up to look like a couple. It seemed too plain, so I added tons of stickles on the image edges and the mats. The image edge is Diamond Stickles and once that was dry, I went over it and the mats with Stardust Stickles.

The inside is  fairly simple. Just a snippet of pink card framing a bit of white card with a Stampin up Xmas sentiment from 1999.

Recipe
Card base- 5 1/2 inch precut pink card base and envelope (Xmas gift)
DP - Candy DP Martha Stewart, pink snowflake DP unknown snippet
Cardstock - green and pink card snippets
Dies - Spellbinders petite circles and petite scalloped circles; Impression Obsession snowflake dies
Embellies - K & Co
Bling - diamond bling
Sentiment Stamp - Stampin Up 1999
Stamp - Gingerbread men Studio G I think;



I am entering this card in the following challenges
1. Christmas Card Club - Festive Foods
2.. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets

Snippet cards

Seems I never have enough generic cards on hand. You know the type...the ones that do not have a sentiment and that could suit any occasion.

I always need that type of card when I mail out the Rudolph Days Challenge prizes. I was doing a bit more organizing in my craft room and found just that type of card! Little Miss C and I took a class last year at the local papercrafts shop. We made 8 or 10 cards each. Most had sentiments but luckily, this design was left sentiment free.

Here is a photo of 2 cards we made from this snippets type design.

The class had us make all the cards from the same coordinating papers. So the banners on this card well suited using up the slim leftover snippets of DP. There was one piece  of DP that had wee circles of design. We punched those out to add to the banner border and  pop dotted some of them forward...just to give a bit of depth and for some impact.

The butterfly was die cut from a snippet of textured card and the addition of some teensy rhinestones finished it off. The white background mat was embossed with a sort of damask pattern.

I promptly allocated mine to the Rudolph Days drawer and quickly purchased the other from Little Miss C. She was delighted to have sold a card before we even left the store!  I am trying to build up my stash of generic cards...so I may just make up a few of these and use up more snippets by doing so.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop- must use snippets.