A New Beginning

Hello Peeps

Firstly, Happy New 2014 

I hope you enjoyed the festivities over Christmas and New Year and are now all bright eyed and button-tailed ready for a new crafting adventure in 2014!

Secondly, I want to thank Merry and her band of Belles for all their work over the last few years, and particularly Merry for all her help to allow me to take over the Unstampabelles Challenge Blog, and see if I can run it as well as she has done. I do hope all the 250+ followers will continue to follow us, and continue to enjoy the challenge of creating paper products without using stamps of any type!

Thank you too, to the Belles who have decided to stay on the wild ride with me for this new venture!

Now, Challenge #30 has finished and we had 94 entries! Wow, how fabulous was that! It did make our job of selecting design Team Favorite a bit difficult however as there were so many wonderful examples of making a fabulous card without using a stamp. 

However, nevertheless the DT have voted, and the favorite is:

No 9 Laney

I love the fact that this is pink and silver and that the whole thing just sparkles with goodness. 

Congratulations Laney and we do hope you display our DT Favourite badge prominently on your blog to celebrate. 

The prize for this Challenge was offered by our very own Merry

and the winner of the prize draw is:

48 Ardilla

Random numbers generated Jan 4 2014 at 5:32:56 by www.psychicscience.org

Congratulations Ardilla - please email Merry with your details to collect your prize. 

********************************

On to the first challenge for 2014

Challenge #31

NEW BEGINNINGS!

From now on there will also be a TWIST with each challenge, for those more experienced bloggers and crafters to use to explore and perhaps extend your skills. The twist for this challenge is to:

use a new product, technique or item on your project AND tell us about it; what is it; how did it work; any problems; would you use it again?

Your CARD can be to celebrate a new home, a new baby, a new job, a retirement, recovery for an illness.......there are many ways we have new beginnings in our life. Here are some examples the DT came up with that you may like to use to gain further inspiration:

We are sponsored this month by the wonderful

The prize includes paper tole sheets, foam pads, paper twist, feathers, 2 x packs of stitching card fronts and envelopes, 3d Sticker sets - weddings and babies.  Many of these things are new items to use i.e feather are very trendy at the moment!

Many thanks to Mandy!

Firstly, we have TWO Guest Designers for this month............ Merry!

Merry made this card for her daughter who turned 18 - in Australia that is old enough to vote and to drink alcohol, and move onto a provisional driving licence (not all at the same time!).  It certainly is a time of new beginnings! I know that Merry has details on her blog on how to make this wonderful glass, so why not go and visit her! It was her first time at this technique. 

and WendyL

Her new items are the pink buttons given her as a gift at Christmas

"Hi my name is Wendy L, known as Spanish Crafter in blogland.   

 I have been card making for a number of years and still get so much pleasure from it, it has also helped see me through some bad times in my life.  I am lucky to have been able to retire early, thanks to my great partner, and we decided to live in Spain to get some warmth into our bones !!!!!  I do go back to the UK two or three times a year to see family, especially now that I have a gorgeous grand daughter to spoil and  baby grandson too. I craft most days and give nearly all my cards to local charities here, as well as making some for friends and neighbors.  I also couldn't live without my laptop and hop around blogland most days too."

Beth at HuggiesCraft: 

Beth says: "My 'New Beginnings' is a wedding card. When a couple get married it's traditionally the beginning of their life together".  You will find out more by visiting her blog.   

JanR

JanR says: "60 can often be a new beginning for some, moving into a new phase of life....this card was for my uncle's birthday. He's retiring from his job and starting his own business. He's also got a grandchild on the way. So, I thought the phrase "Celebrate 60" for this "new" time in his life was fitting.  New technique.....although I've used my Silhouette Sketch Pens before I'd never tried to fit them on a specific shape. It was cool to figure out that I could draw a word exactly where I wanted to on any shape." You can go to Jan's blog to see more details on this!

Sarah

"Since I'm very excited about my status as "new mom", a baby card really popped for me for this challenge.  I loved this quote as well, and it really summed up the theme for me.  I also used two new techniques.  I broke out my ribbon punch to create the ruffled ribbon on the side (first time I've used it) and then I used Inkssentials, Glossy Accents, to create the shiny heart in the corner." More details on the blog!

Susan

This card is to celebrate my New Beginnings with you all by celebrating YOU! The loyal Peeps and followers and entrants in our monthly challenges.  Without you, there will be no new beginning! You can find out more on my blog here about how this is made.

I am sure you will all agree that these cards are inspiring and we now are waiting to see what you can create - without using any stamps!

An InLinkz Link-up