March Challenge

Welcome to March.

This month your challenge is from our design team member Helen who was lucky enough to visit Monet's garden last year.

Helen sent me a couple of photos to help inspire you.

You can use these photos or be inspired by Monet in some other way to create your project.

Your project can be anything but it must be created between 1st and 31st March 2013 and if you choose to enter with us this month we would request that you don't enter any more than 3 other challenges with the same project.

Entry is by the linkz button below and entry is until midnight on 31st March.

This month we are very lucky to be sponsored by My Creative Classroom. Here is a little bit about them:

My Creative Classroom is an online arts and crafts learning center. Our interactive and in-depth courses are instructor led and filled with wonderful projects and techniques to help you get the most out of your supplies. Our Spring Semester is just beginning with over 100 workshop classes to choose from.We have just announced the addition of our Library and Foundation category! The Library features retired classes at 40-50% off their original price and our Foundation classes help you get started on your crafty journey right away!
Here's a sampling of our Workshop classes:

• Social Marketing for Crafters
• Scenic Basics and Beyond
• Beginner's Quilting 101
• Shadow Boxes
• Artful Cards
• Embossing Enamels
• and much, much more!

We are excited to be sponsoring The Craft Garden Challenge. You can view our entire class list on our website at My Creative Classroom. You can also view classes on our Facebook Page too! One lucky winner will receive a free seat to a class of their choice.....Good Luck!

Here is what our wonderful design team have to share with you:

Eleni 

What beautiful inspiration this month ... I decided to go with a 'scenic' layout.

Emma

Such beautiful and serene photos I took my inspiration from the water in Monet's paintings and made my first ever bracelet. The beads are very water inspired and as in Monet's paintings he uses lots of shades of the same colour when working on a particular area so I have tried to emulate that here :)

Helen

We had such a fabulous time in Giverny, the gardens were simply stunning and I could just imagine Claude Monet wandering through them and contemplating where to sit and paint. I decided it would be appropriate to use paint to stamp with for this layout which is what I used for the leaves (Dylusions), the flowers are from various sources but mainly Prima. On the chicken wire stencil for the background I use chalk sprays and carried on the theme using a honeycombe stamp from Indigoblu. The paper I used as a mat and for the journaling is a left over page from a Smash album.

Kelly

For my project this month I was inspired by all the green and the lilys in the water. It made me think of frogs on lily pads so I came up with a frog Prince card!

 

 

 The link button to enter is at the end of the post.

Our February winner is Trish Bee and she wins a selection of ribbons

We are having a design team call this month - watch out for full details in a blog post later in the week.

January Challenge

A very simple challenge for you this month - January's birthstone is the garnet and all you are challenged to do is make a project that is at least 50% RED (or shades thereof).

I must apologise for not being organised and haven't managed a project this month.

Your prize this month is a selection of flowers.

The inlinkz button will be at the bottom of the post in the next couple of days for you to add your entry. Entry is open until midnight on 31st January 2013 and I will choose a winner at random shortly after that date.

Kelly

 

Eleni

hello everyone ... nothing says red for me more than Christmas ... !!

Emma

I chose this fab image from Some Odd Girl she is called spunky sprite Red is not a colour I often use so I really enjoyed this challenge the bloom and pearls were from my stash and some simple embossing with apaisley embossing folder to finish.

Helen

I have been playing with Zentangle after getting several books for Christmas on the technique and I must say it has me hooked already. I started by using a black pen as Zentangle is traditionally black on white but I soon discovered colour has been used by many artists with amazing results. So for this months challenge I decided to use red on white and made my first Zentangle card which is shown below.

 Tiffany

 Nothing says red more to me than Santa's red suit!! There are always more Christmas pics for me to scrapbook, this one is from our Christmas Eve 2011, think I'm ready to start on 2012 now!!

Cathy

To me red screams Valentine's day.

 

February Challenge

Welcome to the February challenge.Pin It





Unfortunately this month we are saying goodbye to Carlyann. We will miss you.  Thanks for everything.


This month we have a fantastic sponsor

My Creative Classroom is an online arts and crafts learning center. Our interactive and in-depth courses are instructor led and filled with wonderful projects and techniques to help you get the most out of your supplies. This Spring MCC will be offering over 100 courses. From the Cricut to Primas, to mixed media and rubber stamping, to scrapbooking, sewing and more; we have something for everyone. Don't miss out on some wonderful classes starting in January, including:

Textured Backgrounds - Starts Feb 1st

Die Cutting with Spellbinders - Starts Feb 3rd

Stenciling with Style - Starts Feb 6th

Art Buffet - Starts Feb 8th

Designing with Scraps - Starts Feb 10th

Silhouette 101 - Starts Feb 14th

We are excited to be sponsoring The Craft Garden Blog Challenge. You can view our entire class list on our website at My Creative Classroom. You can also find us on Facebook too! One lucky winner will receive a free seat to a class of their choice.....Good Luck!

As I'm sure you are aware 2012 is a leap year.  Your challenge this month is to use this picture as inspiration

Click here to getImages

Jumping Pictures - Pictures

Here is what my wonderful team came up with:

Helen

Now this months image got my head thinking in a very different way and I'm not sure why, but I was inspired to make the bracelet and earrings below. The beads just jumped out and I immediately thought of this months challenge! Something a little different but I hope you like them.

Carlyann
This month's challenge i absolutly loved! i knew exactly what i was going to use!! the first thing that came to mind was frogs!!! so froggie it had to be!! :-) Unfortunately this is my last Design Team creation here at The Craft Garden! It's been a wonderful time here! thanks for having me and i wish the whole team luck for the future! xxxx

Melly

When I first saw the picture I knew whatever I did there had to be balloons and kraft! Now with February being "lovie" month I also needed to have Valentines including! So here's what I did using a wee Hot Air Balloon image!

Cathy

I took the balloons, kraft and pink as my inspiration

Kylie Smith

This picture spoke to me of excitement and colour. The balloons translated into round embellishments on my page. This is a double 12"x12" scrapbook layout:

And the individual pages:

Kevin
I took the pink from the picture & being a leap year I wanted to do these Frogs.

Kerry:

Last minute photo with no natural light so apologies. I was inspired by the leap part of the picture.

Tiffany

I was inspired by the pastels of the balloons, so I have pastel green as my main color, and stamped balloons randomly on my background paper.

The January winner will be drawn randomly in the next day or two.

To enter this month please use the Inlinkz button and a winner will be drawn at random.  Entry is open until 23:59 GMT on 29th February 2012.  Good luck everybody.

September Challenge

Welcome to September.

This month sees the start of the autumnal equinox in this part of the world.

Your challenge is to use this picture from here as inspiration. It can be the colours, the ladies or anything else that inspires you.

Your prize this month is the following selection of flowers in colours to match the colour palette from the challenge.

I also provided the design team with some flowers from the colour palette above and let them loose
 with their imagination.

Carlyann


I was thrilled to have been able to use some fantastic blooms and beautiful butterflys from The Craft Garden shop for my DT Card this month! If you've not visited the shop omg! where have you been! get over there!!! hehe!
I've gone for the colours of the picture for my card this month & throughly enjoyed making it!!

Melly

I loved these colours and knew my Prima Madeline Papers would be perfect with the gorjuss BLOOMS from the fab shop!



Helen

Well my eyes just grew when I saw the beautiful butterfly and flowers Kerry sent for this months challenge. I knew that they were going to be used on more than one project and so set about crafting straight away! The first project is a mdf book for my nephew's 21st, I used several flowers inside but also used the butterfly and this cream flower which I stamped for the back cover. Being a lad I have had to make the book simple but still decorative, this butterfly set the page off beautifully, I am sure he will find a suitable photo to add to it.

I was in the process of making this tag when Kerry's flowers arrived and they just finished it off so perfectly. I just love the overall feel of this piece and the flowers give added texture. The wings are stamped and then crackle glazed.

The above page is for a wedding album I am making as a gift. The paper is very pretty but needed a title and I decided to to it in the form of a tag. I love the stitching details on the flower and leaf embellishment.

Kevin

Kerry:

Tiffany

Again we had lots of lovely entries for the August challenge and the random number generator chose number 20

which is DonnaT with this entry

Donna please can you get in touch at craftgardenshop@gmail.com to claim your prize.

August Challenge

Welcome to the August challenge - where did the rest of the year disappear to?

August is the month of the Notting hill Carnival

The challenge this month is bold, bright and loud. 

I found this website with an amazing picture which sums it up

Here is what the design team created:

Helen

When I think about carnivals I think about a real eclectic mix of styles, colours & objects & with this in mind I created the frame above. I used glimmer sprays to give a really brighy & shimmery feel to the background  and then I just put a collection together of my favourite bits and pieces from my stash

Kevin

Tiffany

Carlyann

I recenetly went to a very french themed carnival not far from me! so thought i'd create a card that followed this it was full of colours but the main being pink and black!

Melly

I decided as it was Summer to make the card extra bright and bold but also having what we all want on a warm day, ICE CREAM!!

Your prize this month is a RAK from my own stash of a packet of card blanks, envelopes and some ribbon.  Entry is open now via the inlinkz button below until 23:59 GMT on 31st August.

Last month we had a whopping 62 entries which was amazing.  There can only be one winner though and that is number 38.

number 38 was scrappy scatty jan with this adorable duck



Jan if you can email me at craftgardenshop@googlemail.com with your details and I will get your prize out to you asap.

July Challenge

Welcome to July.

Do you want to win this selection of Prima goodies for my shop? 

If so then all you need to do is read the criteria for this months challenge and submit an entry.

In July there is a census of swans. 
More info can be found here about how they count them.

A couple of years ago we encountered some adolescent swans on holiday at Center Parcs.  My son was fascinated by them.

Your challenge this month is quite simply to use a bird on your work however you like.

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

This is what some of the talented design team came up with:

Kevin

Helen

Katy

Tiffany

Kerry

Carlyann

Also has candy for anyone participating in this months challenge!!

and your winner for June is number 17 which is Kathleen Mc with this beautiful card

Kathleen please can you email me your details to craftgardenshop@googlemail.com and I will get your prize out to you.