January Rudolph Days Challenge Winner

Hi there. We had 47 entries in the January Rudolph Days Challenge. Thanks so much to everyone who participated! It is always great to have a Christmas card or two finished up in the first month of the year. We will all be so glad to have these finished cards handy at the start of the Christmas card mailing season!

Once again, I have used Random Org to chose our winner, # 40 Darnell. Darnell, can you please drop me an email to maureenkane@telus.net and confirm your mailing address.

January Rudolph Days Challenge

Welcome to the first Rudolph Days Challenge for 2023. This is always an exciting month...a month to set new crafting goals, to plan some new cardmaking or scrapbooking ideas and designs, and to just have fun!

I have some news to share as well. We had several entries for the design team opening, and I finally got Al to draw the winner. I would like to welcome Marjeta from Marjetina ustvarjalnica (Marjeta's Creative Company blog), to our team. She will partner up with Sam who has been such a champ about being short a partner! Once you arrive at Marjeta's blog, there is translate button near the top that you can press to get an English version to read. Sam and Marjuta will be our designers next month.

Our designers have been busy creating cards to inspire you! First up is Jenny at Cardsarus blog. Jenny's first card features this pretty wreath! It looks to me that she has stamped the images individually in a circular mannner, and added some of the same stamps in the corners. I love the look of this and also love the matching images on the envelope! I am going to try to match my envelopes this year too, as I thnk it makes the card look fabulous!

Jenny made a second card in the new long, slim card style. This style is very popular over here right now. My local store has all sorts of dies and stamps etc in the slim sizes. I think Santa likes them too, as he brought me one of each this year! I quite like the glitter card Jenny used for the background. It makes her images pop off the card front! I am thinking these might be upcycled images but we will have to pop over to Jenny's blog to know for sure. Be sure and leave her some praise while you are over there!

Sue has been very busy as well. Sue has made a series of cards in differing background shimmery colours. They feature a very pretty Christmas bauble die. It always amazes me how many cards Sue makes for us to view. Be sure to pop over to Sue's blog, Sue's Crafty Corner, and leave her some praise! I am looking forward to reading about this very pretty die!

My first card showcases an image that was a gift from a friend, many years ago. I like the quiet, peaceful feel of this little scene. The image is embossed in black embossing powder and colourd with copic inks. l applied lots of star dust stickles on the trees and used a sparkle pen over the image and setiment. I used a snippet of quite thin copper mirri card from the $ store for the mat, and used another snippet of snowflake DP for the background. That background paper was from a really old kit that I picked up at the $ store as well.

My second card features a Hunky Dory cardfront. I love assembling these when I am bored! They always perk me up...The background is from my snippet files and the card itself is a 5x7 inch card. I managed to get red 5x7 envelopes this year but forgot to take a photo of the card with the envelope before it was delivered to our neighbours.

I only use these Hunky Dory cards for hand delivered cards. All the layers tend to make the cards too thick to mail with normal postage. We usually see the same group of family and friends during the Christmas season, so I bring these layered type cards along when we meet up for coffee, cards, or just meet up for fun, during the lead up to Christmas.

Al is still working on his recovery. He has a heart imaging test coming up in February that will hopefully tell if he is a candidate for a surgery to correct his aortic heart valve. They have ruled him not well enough for a valve replacement, but are testing to see if he could perhaps get a stent there instead. Fingers crossed, as that would give him more energy as aortic stenosis is very draining. After having already been through the quadruple bypass bypass surgery a bit more than a year ago, he would be quite happy to only have to deal with a stent this time!

Our prize this month is this Sizzix, Tim Holtz die set, Holiday Brushstroke #3.

November Rudolph Days Challenge Winner

We had 42 entries for our final Rudolph Challenge of the year. That makes my heart happy! One thing I have always enjoyed about this challenge, even before I hosted it, is that this challenge is fairly small by current challenge standards. I think that fact is one of the main reasons that the bloggers who visit here and enter here, seem to embrace visiting each other and take the opportunity to create virtual friendships with each other.

I feel that I am virtual friends with all of you and it is a lovely feeling. It has bolstered me through COVID when we were all trapped at home and trying to make the best of life. And you all embraced me when Al was so poorly, and I was so worried about him. He gets stronger every day, and is slowly learning to cope with the differences in his stamina and strength. Our grandson is 15 now and comes up to shovel our snow now, but earlier in the year he blew the leaves up onto the lawn and then mowed them up when he cut the lawn for us. Al goes out with him, not so much to supervise, but to just spend the time with him, chatting and joking around. Of course there are always desserts and tea available inside for afterwards! They were always really close as they share a zany sense of humour, but they are even closer now and it is lovely to see. Family is truly wonderful!!!

I used Random Org to draw our winner #25 Sandra

Sandra, please email me at maureenkane@telus.net and let me know your mailing address.