December Challenge And November Winner

Your challenge for December is a sketch challenge borrowed with kind permission from Pencillines. It is sketch 155 from their archives.

This is the very quick example I have done so I apologise for the poor quality.

It is primarily intended by pencillines as a scrapbook sketch but obviously it can be adapted to suit your needs and should you do a card then the photo section can be substituted for a design. You can do anything craft related - card, scrapbook page, altered art etc etc as long as you do it in December.

The prize this month is 5 packets of white flowers as pictured.

Competition is open until 31st December and I will choose a winner on 1st January so somebody will have a nice package to start the new year.

You need to give Mister Linky your details to enter and he can be found at the very bottom of this post. If you don't have a blog then you can enter from any forum gallery etc but it must have been completed in December.

NOVEMBER

I used random generator to choose a winner for the November challenge and it chose number 11

which is Mandy with this lovely entry.

If you can email your address details to craftgardenshop@aol.com Mandy I will get your prize out to you asap. The prize for November was the Raja and Sultan Flower Centres.

November Monthly Challenge

The challenge for November is SPARKLE. (see the post below for the October winner)

It doesn't matter what you use - just a hint of sparkle or full on bling it up. I appreciate it is difficult to photograph anything sparkly.


Your prize this month is a packet each of the Raja and Sultan flower centers

To enter please click on the mister linky at the bottom of this post with a link to your entry.

Closing date for entries is 30th November and I will use random.org to select a winner on 1st December.

Entries can be any craft project - scrapbook page, card, altered art, knitting, sewing, crochet - whatever you like. I have done a scrapbook layout as an example.

I went a bit over the top with the sparkle and used raja centers, some stickles and a glittery thickers alphabet. I also used Wink Essentials and Violet Painterly Petals

Clickety click below to enter. Entry is now closed for this competion. Winner will be announced shortly.

October Monthly Challenge Winner

Thanks to everybody who took part in the October challenge.

I used random to find the winner who is entrant number 1 from the 10 who entered.

Congratulations to Kirsten. Please can you email your address details to lambournekerry@aol.com and I will get your prize out to you.

New Monthly Challenges Start Today

I am starting a monthly challenge with a prize from my shop. These challenges will be set on the 1st of every month and all entries will be accepted until midnight on the last day of the month it is set.

You can enter a craft project, scrapbook layout, card etc as long as it fills the criteria for the challenge.

Entry will be by Mr Linky which will be at the bottom of each challenge and I will then use a random generator to pick the winner.

So without further ado here is this month's challenge.

As it is the first challenge and my shop specialises in flowers I am keeping it simple. Your challenge is simply to use FLOWERS.

I have done a scrapbook layout using flowers

You have until 31st October to upload your entry to your blog, link to it with Mr Linky and I will pick the winner on 1st November.

Your prize this month is all the flowers pictured and 2 packets of the brand new release of Say It In Pearls & Crystals.

This challenge is now ended and was won by Kirsten - entrant number 1

It's Flower Prize Time

Would you like to win this?





This week I am sponsoring the Allsorts Challenge. To find out how you can win hop on over there.


I am also offering Allsorts readers 10% off purchases in my shop until the end of October. To take advantage of this just quote allsorts in the discount code box at checkout.

Colour Mixes

New to the shop are colour mixes. Ranging from very pale, to bright, to muted right through to dark these ranges are mixed to give you variety in your card making and scrapbooking.

The links to each product are not working but if you click on this link to get to the shop and then click on the colour mixes category when you get there all these new mixes can be accessed from there.

White Mix (all same colour)

Brown/Orange Autumn Mix (bad photo sorry)

Green Mix

Pink Mix

Blue Mix

Yellow/Orange Mix

Officially Open

At last I can turn the sign around to OPEN.

The Craft Garden is now open for business.

I have been filling the online shelves today with the new stuff I received at the end of last week and by the end of the week I hope to have all my stock in place. Then it will be adios to Ebay. They served a purpose but now I am ready to stand on my own.

Working On It

A quick update - I am almost there with the initial set up of the shop. I have had to go with co.uk instead of .com. The full address is www.thecraftgarden.co.uk and I hope to have the shop full of products in the next week.

My order from across the atlantic is on it's way right now so *fingers crossed* there will be lots of yummy new CHA flowers in stock by this time next week.

I will be working on the shop as often as I can - well until my eyes go blurry from too much internet use - to bring everything I have into stock.

My Ebay shop will still be up and running for a while albeit with a limited stock after the new shop opens.

A Change Of Plan

I really am pretty stupid. I set up the new website and paid for the domain name and everything and was going to get to work setting up the shop next week when the kids go back to school. Idiot that I am didn't think for one minute to see if I could actually set up a shop on the pretty damed expensive website provider I used. Offering a paypal shopping cart as part of the package I assumed that it would be perfect - unfortunately not because that is the only option and it won't even cater for international customers or give me a counter for the products left or any of the usual simple things you would expect from an online shop.

As a result of my findings I have decided to try and find another website provider for the shop. I will still try and open next week but the shop you may (or may not) have bookmarked will not be the correct one. I have owned www.thecraftgarden.co.uk for some while so I will probably use that instead of .com and write off the .com address to experience. Domain transfers are possible I suppose and I will look into that too.

I am also having a few shipping problems with Prima too. As of this morning they haven't charged the order of the latest stock they have ready for me despite that fact that it has been ready in their warehouse for 2 weeks. I suppose they are busy.

Anyway just keeping my customers up to speed with developments and in the meantime the ebay shop is operating as normal.

A Bit Of Inspiration For You

I have altered the blog and added some inspiration sites to the sidebar. Up to date challenges should show up as they are added by their respective owners.

The shop will (hopefully) open after the school holidays which end the second week in september. I am still waiting for Prima to ship the latest stock but it should be here in time for the shop opening. If not then I will simply open with my existing stock and add the new stuff later. There will be a special prize for the first customer spending over £10 when the shop opens but I will give more details of this when I know the official date and time.

Going It Alone

Ebay has been invaluable in providing me with a platform for my shop but I feel that the time has come for me to move on. I don't agree with their overpriced fees and unfair new policies which are coming into force soon.

I will be launching my own online shop, away from Ebay, in September.

New CHA summer stock is on order with Prima and should be with me shortly.

I might keep some stock on Ebay but the main bulk of my flowers will be in the new shop.

Inspiration

The Color Combos insiration blog has a colour challenge every week or so.

This time it was barney purple - bj yellow - vanilla milkshake - treehouse green

Here is what I did using those colours. The letters are Thickers, the big flower is a Prima Lollipop and the small flowers are from the Iced collection.

The Craft Garden

The Craft Garden is my Ebay shop.

It was set up a couple of years ago when I bought some paper flowers and realised that there was no way I would be able to use them all in my scrapbooking. I decided to sell some in small quantities in grip seal bags and it kind of took off from there.

I have a wide range available and hopefully you can find something in the colour/style you need.

I hope to bring you not just flowers but links to inspiration for using them from around the web.