November Monthly Challenge

The monthly challenge for my card making workshop for November was, naturally enough considering the time of year, to make a Christmas card, but there was a restriction. We could only use blue and silver. Basically as soon as I heard this was the theme I knew what I wanted to do. I guess in a way it was cheating a little bit because it is a design I used last year, but never mind that. In the end it isn't quite as I imagined it because I expected to use blue card, and therefore the front would look a little different (mainly because the bauble would stand out a little more) but in the end I am pretty happy with how it worked out.

I wouldn't have necessarily thought it was so hard to get blue and silver but there was really very little around in terms of papers, and even after looking at this paper lots of times over the last few weeks, I am not convinced that the paper I am using is not purple and silver. I asked in three different paper shops, and they all told me that that this was the only paper they had and it was definitely blue with a red tinge. Again, I would have thought that that made it purple, but what do I know!

The other nice thing this month, was that I was finished making them all on Sunday of last week. I am afraid I can't take credit for this though really. I dobbed a friend of mine in to participate in the challenge. She has only started card making recently so she was freaking out a little, so she came around a while ago and spent the day trying to come up with a design. Last weekend she was freaking that she wasn't finished and so I went over there on Sunday morning and got them all made! She is definitely the organiser amongst my friends!



Once again, my photo doesn't really do it justice I don't think! I really need to either learn to take better photos, or get a professional in!

Monthly challenge

I mentioned a while ago that I was going to start posting about my other hobby (yes, I do occasionally do something other than read, blog and mod forums!) which is card making. Eventually I intend to move all my posts here from the very neglected card making blog that I started a while ago, but for tonight I have something new to post about!

Every month I attend a card making class that a friend of mine runs . Each time there is either a new skill, technique or theme that we learn or use. One of the new things we have been doing recently is having a monthly card challenge, where we are given a very broad outline of what to make, and then have to make 8 cards the same for the 8 other people who participate in the challenge. I do have the last two months challenge cards here to take photos and post at some point. Every time I have been determined that I would not leave the making of the challenge cards to the last minute, but the class is tomorrow night, and yes, I have only just finished my batch of cards tonight, and even then it was only achieved with the assistance of my son in putting them all together!

So the theme for this month was Background - the idea was that you had to make your own background, and not used patterned papers etc. I took as my inspiration spring, and the fact that I bought a stamp a few months ago that I really liked and just have never used before now! And the reason I bought this particular stamp is because I love tulips!

So here's my card:



(I might try to take another photo in the daylight on Saturday and see if I can get a better photo.) Darn! I just noticed that the card I have taken a photo of is the wonky card! I somehow ended up with more pink flowers than orange and yellow, and so this card has two pinks instead of one pink, one yellow and one orange flower.

Now I just have to hope that the other 7 people in the challenge group don't hate it! And then when we get the details of the next challenge tomorrow night, try not to leave it to the last minute next month.

I really should start thinking about what I am going to do for Christmas cards too, and I really must clean up all my craft stuff so that I can find things when I am looking for them. The reorganisation of it all seems to be a constant requirement, especially seeing as I keep on buying more!