Five Day's to Go!

There are only 5 days left for the first 2014 Challenge#31 - New Beginnings!

A reminder - you need to make a CARD  without any stamps - digital, cling or rubber!

Before I go on:

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY 

for yesterday!

Hope you all had a great time!

Now here are a couple of CARDS to inspire you for this last few days of our challenge

Julene

This is a card I have made for Lucy Maraca. The sentiment says awesome, so it could be for any big news such as an engagement, passing exams - whatever it is, the reason would mean a new beginning for someone.

Thanks Julene - I know life has dealt a difficult few moments for you lately and appreciate the effort to make this for us!

Susan

Babies are definitely a new beginning in anyone's life and we are expecting a few new people in our life this year, so I was just getting in a bit early!

Remember - there is an awesome prize for this challenge:

We are sponsored this month by the wonderful

So, why not have a go in the last few days of this challenge and see if you can produce a CARD without using any stamps - it really is easier than it sounds! 

Well, we are Midway!

Hello Everbody - I hope you are all keeping cool or warm (depending on where you currently reside!) as it seems to be a story of extremes out there at the moment.  Keep safe too - with fires and floods and possibly famine!

We are into the third week now on our Challenge #31 - New Beginnings, and have some more inspiration to share with you.  Remember you are making something that does not have stamps in its creation and fits the theme of New Beginnings!

The TWIST for this month (if you accept the challenge) is to tell us why your creation is about a new beginning in your blog story.


Now, for the inspiration:

Firstly from Tracey

She says "I must admit that for the last week or so I've had Valentine's Day on the brain, so decided to go with the theme of "New Love".  I'm sure if we all reminisce, we remember that first Valentine's Day with our "new love"...the thrill and the excitement of finding the perfect gift, planning the perfect evening.  Well, this theme also allowed me to use some new items in my stash...they include the cute little teddy bear cupid who is a print and cut file for my Silhouette Cameo, as well as two new Memory Box dies...the love script and the hanging hearts!  I kept this card pretty simple...but I hope you will enjoy and find some inspiration in it!"

Deanne

OK - its a New Year's card BUT the new products are Basic Grey 25th and Pine supplies. 

Susan

My new goodies are the flowers and bird die

The New Beginning here is the card is made for a friend who is retiring  - she loves her garden and reading. The Secret Garden was  a favorite book of mine from childhood and when I saw the 12 x 12 page from Graphic 45 I had to have it. The image is from that page as is the quote. 

Merry

Merry has made a big effort with this card as she decided to use the felt strip up from her stash, but found it was not willing to be unpeeled from it's backing and ended up sticking her fingers together! She eventually had enough left to complete this lovely piece! A wedding card!

Merry says "I made an envelope to go with the card using my new Envelope Punch Board which I purchased the end of last year and is my new favourite crafting item.  I have had the paper in my stash for ages and it was nice to put it to good use." Notice that the words "I Do" are on the envelope - isn't she clever!

Great News

We have expanded the Design Team here at Unstampabelles, to include four new girls.  I am sure you will all make them welcome and feel the love by visiting them on their blogs and checking out their styles!

Introducing:

Deanne Clark-Saunders

My name is Deanne Clarke-Saunders. My hubby and I live in St. John’s Newfoundland Canada. I’m an elementary teacher but currently not working. I have always enjoyed playing with paper, scissors, glue, and ESPECIALLY crayons and pencil crayons, ever since I've been a small child. I just couldn't stop playing, so I continued by scrap-booking and card-making! I love it!!! My hubby calls me a paper hoarder. He just MAY be right, but I’d never tell him that!!! A man doesn't need to know he’s right!!! ha ha!

Margaret Ashby

I am 68 years old and live in Sydney with my husband.  I have two daughters and four grand-daughters.  I am now retired.  I started stamping and making cards in 1995 and started scrapbooking about 1999 and making ATCs in 2005 and my blog in April 2012,  joining challenges about then.  I was really happy to find other blogs to give me new ideas for my cards and then excited to be invited to join some design teams.

I suffer from fibromyalgia and arthritis so spend my days making cards, a little scrapbooking and talking to my cyber friends on the internet.  This helps take my mind off the pain.  I have made many more cyber friends since starting my blog.

Thank you for the invitation to join UnstampaBelles, I look forward to working with you all.

Tracey Fehr

Hi!  I'm Tracey!  I live on a small acreage in Manitoba, Canada with my husband, our two wonderful children, our Norwegian Elkhound, and several cats!  I am a stay at home mom who is kept busy with cooking, cleaning and chauffeuring our son and daughter around.   When I have a moment alone, or need to relieve some stress, you will find my hiding out in my basement craft room.  I have been card making and scrap booking on and off for about 15 years as time allows...but card making is my true passion.  I am so excited to be joining The UnstampaBelles!

Julene Matthews

I am an active member on several forums including Mystical, Soul Scrappers, Artastic, From screen to scrap, Stuck?! sketches, White with one, Anna’s Craft Cupboard and CSI.  I am currently a DT member on Counterfeit Kits Challenge  and Lollipop Ladies and now Unstampabelles.

I've been scrapbooking for about 12 years and love it!

I keep a book of sketches as I complete one or do a layout of my own that I’m happy with.  I have been published in Scrapbook Creations and Scrapbooking Memories several times, including a project in Scrapbook Creations. Also my layouts appeared online in Scrapbook News and Reviews.

I have taught scrapbooking at 2 different shops and have attended retreats. I regularly attend craft fairs and have even worked on a stall. I'm a retired teacher librarian, and now an empty nester as my daughter works interstate. I live in Sydney. However, I have 3 nieces and nephews who often feature in my layouts. I’m committed to Scrapbooking and young at heart!  My style is uncluttered as I try to emphasise the photos. I have made cards, mini albums and ATC’s as well as layouts.

How exciting is that!

Remember too we have three 'Belles left from Merry's team of last year plus myself - as you can see from the great work they did for January's DT inspiration. Beth, Jan, Sarah and Susan (me!) are all still here and we all welcome our newest members of the team and cannot wait to see what they can produce for us! All we need is for you  peeps to be inspired now and start to put in your entries for this challenge - go on, you can do it - make something without using a stamp!!

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. 

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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

Cathy's Last Inspiration for Unstampabelles

Cathy can't leave without one more bit of inspiration.  Our current challenge is Christmas (closes Friday, 3rd January) and proving to be a huge success.  Can you help us crack 100 entries…..we currently have 86 entries as I post this.  So exciting and really going make the Design Team work when choosing their favourite.

The card above is a wonderful quick idea.  Cathy has cut three trees from pearl paper and run them through her Cuttlebug then added Kindy Glitz for a little sparkle.   Finished with a gold sentiment sticker.  You can see Cathy's blog post here.

This is a clever way to give money or a gift card at Christmas time.  You can find more details here on Cathy's blog.

Enter Challenge #30 - Christmas here.

Closes Friday, 3rd January.

Halfway Inspiration - Challenge #30 - Christmas

We are seeing that Christmas is a well liked theme as we already have 46 amazing entries.  It will definitely be a challenge at the end of this month to for the Design Team to choose just one favourite.  However, keep them coming and really make the Design Team work. :-)

Challenge #30 is all about paper crafts for Christmas with no stamps used.  There is a wonderful prize on offer for one lucky winner.  You can enter your creations here.

The Design Team have been busy coming up with some more awesome Christmas ideas for inspiration.

Trish - our Guest Designer for December.  Beautiful cards using a collection of dies and wonderful folds.

Beth - used a custom wood tree produced by Kaiser Kraft which has been decorated with Christmas papers and die cuts to embellish.  Before adhering the design papers the edges were painted green. Once the glue (PVA) adhering the paper was dry, the edges were trimmed where necessary, sanded, inked and then painted with Jo Sonja Opal Dust. The six sections are joined with lengths of Christmas ribbon.

Jan - created this pretty Christmas card with glitter paper, die cut snowflakes, patterned paper, trim, bling & Thickers

Susan - has created this wonderful card that 'Merry' loves as it is her final 'Christmas' challenge at Unstampabelles.  Susan has used dies, ribbon, paper flowers and leaves.

Merry - created this card with pinwheels using 4cm squares of white pearl paper and added some bling to the centre of each.  The sentiment is a rub-on.

Thanks for visiting and leaving such lovely comments.  All of the Unstampa'belles' wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Challenge entries here.

Unstampabelles Challenge #30 - Christmas

Such terrific creations we saw using Vellum last month. Thanks for joining in the fun.  It was also wonderful to see that it got a lot of people digging through their stash and some people out of their comfort zones.

The random prize draw winner of Beth's terrific prize pack this month is……

20 - Elly Booij

Random numbers generated Dec 2 2013 at 7:16:45 by www.psychicscience.org 

Congrats Elly Booij please email Merry and she will organise your prize.

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Now this did take  a little while for the Design Team to choose but our favourite entry for the Vellum challenge is……………..

Wendy L

 As Design Team Favourite Wendy L we invite you to be our Guest Designer for December please email Merry for further details.

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We have NEWS!!!!!

There will be changes to Unstampabelles in 2014 but it still will remain a fun challenge for paper crafts with no stamps.

Merry is stepping down from Unstampabelles at the end of December as her two kids have finished school now which means things will be different in 2014 and she wants to be ready for whatever comes.  

Susan has said that she will happily (although nervously) take on the organising of challenges for Unstampabelles.  Thanks so much Susan.  So stay tuned for new things to happen in 2014.

Cathy and Lauren are also moving on from Unstampabelles at the end of the December challenge.

Lauren it has been lovely having you as part of the team and we will miss your terrific scrap pages that added variety to our inspiration each month.  

Cathy will definitely be missed as she has been part of Unstampabelles since the very beginning and has been Merry's fall back often when she needed help with posting and time management.  :-)

From Merry - "Thanks everyone for making Unstampabelles what it is today…. a place for all paper crafters to use a variety of techniques without the use of stamps."

So you want to hear about the new challenge I suppose. :-)

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Challenge #30 - Christmas (No stamps)

Yes, we have made it nice and easy for you this month.

 Scrap pages, cards, journal pages, origami etc. are all welcome.

All entries are subject to the Design Teams discretion.

Any form of paper creation will be accepted as long as NO STAMPS (Digital or Rubber) have been used.

  

You can find our rules here for further information.

The prize pack this month is from Merry.

Prize for December Challenge includes:

Laser cut cards and card fronts - Christmas Designs

Card front designs pre-holed ready for stitching.

Card front designs with the stitching pattern printed on the card.

Christmas stickers.

3 types of star brads

Christmas foil shapes

Four pads of Sticky Notes

Now to be inspired…………

First off we have our regular email entrant Trish who is our Guest Designer this month.

Trish has used Marvellous Squares by Spellbinders with some paper from her stash and a poinsettia from the same paper.  The corners are from the Marvellous Squares and have just inked them and some pearls from my stash.

Beth

Used scraps and diecuts and flower soft.

Cathy

Started with a sketch from Feeling Sketchy #75 (flipped upside down, Miss Pat) added Christmas Trees from scraps, decorated using a method seen on Splitcoast Stampers, Kindy Glitz added and snowflakes cut with the CraftROBO placed on Kindy Glitz whilst wet.  Ribbon and pre-made embellishment & gold sticker stars added.

JanR

used a mdf PEACE, patterned paper and various embellishments.

Lauren

Created an advent calendar using the Kaisercraft kit, some Bella! paper and lots of Scrapmatts chipboard.

Merry

Created this gingerbread house using the pattern here.  Merry used lots of paper scraps and glitter.

Sarah

made this card with ribbons, craft paper and die cuts for the J and Y and a sticker for the O in Joy.  

Susan

 made a stack of cards from a freebie pack included with a magazine - she got 11 cards out of this, and they made up very quickly.  The pack was from Hot off the Press.

I am sure you are inspired by the wonderful creations of the Design Team…..your turn to share….just remember - no stamps.