Saturday 30 January 2016

CHNC challenge 266: anything goes as long as it's Christmas

Once again, a fabulous lot of entries for last week's challenge - thank you, everyone. And thank you for all the get well wishes. The kidney infection has cleared up ... but I now have another cracked rib ... I'm a bit of a disaster zone - lol!!

Before I tell you about this week's challenge, I need to let you know the winners of challenge 265 There were four opportunities to win a prize.

Please note that I publish the prize winners here and on our facebook page, but don't notify winners individually - it is up to you all to check to see if you have won and email me as requested. There are one or two unclaimed prizes, so it's worth having a look back to see if you were a winner.

Please note that my email to send to now is craftyhazelnut@gmail.com

The first winner:  

Number 22: Marie Bingamanwho shared this lovely card:


Congratulations, Marie. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com with your full name and address so I can arrange for you to receive your lucky dip pack of Kanban products from Foil Play.

The second winner:

Number 37: Jose, who shared this lovely tag:


Congratulations, Jose. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your gift certificate for $10 to spend at Fresh Brewed Designs.

The third winner:

Number 3: Melissa SunshineHoneyBee, who shared this lovely card:


Congratulations, Melissa. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your three digital stamps from the Crafts 4 eternity collection.

The fourth winner:

Number 14:  Valery Anne, who shared two lovely cards, one of which had this inside:


Congratulations, Valery Anne. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your three sets of papers from Lozzy.

In case you missed this at the beginning of the month:

I am making these changes to the themes for the challenges:

1st Saturday in the month: vintage or anything goes
2nd Saturday in the month: colour, e.g use 'red', a little or a lot
3rd Saturday in the month: cute or anything goes
4th Saturday in the month: use a sentiment
5th Saturday in the month: anything goes


Still always Christmas, of course

I'm hoping this will help you if you wish to plan ahead. There will be scope within each of these challenges to use whatever materials, styles, images etc that you want to.

So, as this is the 4th Saturday in the month, this is the theme for:

Challenge 266

anything goes
as long as it's Christmas


This week there are four opportunities to win a prize - as usual, winners will be chosen randomly. I do hope we will get a lot of entries this week to encourage these wonderful sponsors.




The first sponsor is Crafter's Companion:

Crafter's Companion is a well known haven of crafting goodies of all descriptions. They are giving a £10 voucher to the randomly chosen winner.

The second sponsor is new to CHNC: Uniko:


'My name is Beverley Brown and I am the owner and designer of Uniko Ltd, a small family run business. Tthough it is mainly myself that designs, blogs and does all the day to day running of things, whilst being a full time mum to 17 month old twin boys! Uniko Ltd specialises in clear stamps and paper crafting products.

Being an avid paper crafter and stamp addict for many years, plus completing a BA (Hons) in Textiles & Surface Design I decided back in February 2012 to combine my passions and launch my own range of stamps, designer dies & digital paper collections.'

The randomly chosen winner will receive a clear stamp set of choice from the Uniko website.

  The third sponsor is Tando Creative:


'We supply our own unique range of chipboard designs that are both innovative and inspiring. We have now added masks to our range of products cut from sturdy and durable 350 micron polyfilm.

We offer a complete bespoke design and cut package for chipboard or we can cut products to your digital designs.'

Tando Creative will be sending the randomly chosen winner a prize package.

 The fourth sponsor is Lacy Sunshine:


Heather Valentin is creative , award winning, modern-day fantasy and whimsical artist who has displayed a dynamic and vibrant energy while painting professionally for over 18 years.

She began to express herself creatively through movement at a very young age.
For many years she studied dance, being drawn to forms that allowed creative self expression, all the while feeling this constant urge to create with her hands. The canvas is now her dance floor where color, beauty and drama are expressed through her every pencil sketch and brush stroke. Her subjects vary from fairies, fantasy, mermaids, vampires, dragons, wildlife, abstract and more. She is one who is inspired in a single moment. Her dreams, moods and the the unfolding beauty of the world around her is what charts her dance for the day. She is most alive when sketching and painting, creating timeless pieces that reflect her heart and soul. Drawing breathes life into her soul- it enables her to reach out and touch lives. This gives her a place in the world one character and painting at a time.

Heather's artist portfolio has expanded to include such clients as Pepsi, Outback Steakhouse, Nabisco, Zephryhils and can now be found at Laguna Art, Third Stone Art Gallery and Sausalito Art Galleries, along with commercial and private collections across
the globe.

Her latest foray is to immortalize her popular drawn characters Eleanor and Pickles in a children's book of their own.

The prize for the randomly chosen winner will be three digis of choice from the Lacy Sunshine Shoppe.

Please visit the websites of these generous sponsors and support them -
you will be spoiled for choice!

Please look down the sidebar on the right to see all of the sponsors giving out prizes during this year** - quite a few new ones as well as others who have been giving generously in the past. I am so thankful for everyone coming on board to support me. When buying your crafting goodies, please click on the links to see what's on offer in their online stores and support them as much as you can with your orders.

** As this is still early new year, I still need to adjust the side bar to accommodate new sponsors - this is a 'work in progress', so please watch this space!

For this card I used Lacy Sunshine's Christmas Boo (one of our sponsors this week), coloured digitally using Microsoft Paint. I've used Papermania papers from the Cranberry and apple capsule collection and various washi tapes. (I have to admit that this has been shown a long time ago - I haven't so far been able to make anything new this week, but if I'm feeling better I will add something later):


This is a card I made for Suzy Bee's Bloomin' challenge 115 - as it's a Christmas card I thought I'd add it here - you can read about it here on My Crafty Outlook:


And this is my card for my CHNC challenge extra for February, using Bugaboo Stamps digi papers - frosty and Christmas words - Noel - you can read about it here on My Crafty Outlook - and, of course, this week you can add your designs to this challenge here and also for CHNC challenge extra for February as they are both 'anything goes as long as it's Christmas'.



Now it's over to you. As usual, you can use any materials, any techniques - and this week the challenge is 'anything goes as long as it's Christmas'.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with for this challenge - please add a link to your blog post (not your blog, but the actual post where your creation can be found) by 22:00 UK time Friday 5 February 2016. Please include a link to this blogpost within the post for your creation.

You can enter as many times as you wish  and also link to any other challenges that allow you to do so, but new work only, please.

A new challenge will be set on Saturday 6 February 2016 when there will be five or six chances to win a prize, thanks to generous sponsors.

Please add your link to inlinkz. If by any chance it disappears, please leave a comment with the link to your blog post and I will make sure it is added.

If you haven't done so already, please become a follower and grab my bright pink button to post on your sidebar and help continue to spread the word about this challenge blog - thank you. 

Please also consider going to CHNC Facebook page and clicking 'like' if you haven't done so already and encourage your friends to do the same. We now have 428 'likes'  - it was lovely to welcome another three again this week, but there's plenty of room for more! I always try to show at least one of my creations for the next challenge in advance and it's a good place to catch up with any news, winners etc.

Don't forget

Please feel free to copy to your sidebar

Don't forget that 'anything goes' monthly challenges are on my Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra blog - you can share any Christmas creation you make throughout the whole month, including those that you link here - there is no restriction on the number of entries you can make throughout the month - the link for CHNC challenge extra for February is here.

I also run a challenge blog called Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - anything goes as long as you use some patterned paper - a randomly chosen prize winner every month. Please click on the link to find out more. If you have used patterned paper for your Christmas creation, why not enter it there too. And please be aware that the Patterned Paper Challenge is not restricted to Christmas - it is for any occasions as long as some patterned paper has been used.

Thank you for your support
I look forward to seeing your entries

Saturday 23 January 2016

CHNC challenge 265: use a sentiment


What a lovely lot of cute entries for last week's challenge. I need to explain that I have been very poorly this week and haven't been able to do any crafting, neither have I been able to comment much. On Monday late evening I ended up on the bedroom floor and couldn't get up ... despite John's valiant efforts to get me up he and I failed. In the end the paramedics were called and then a doctor (didn't want to to to hospital as suggested because I'm John's carer here). I have a kidney infection and am on antibiotics which will finish on Monday ... I hope I'll improve by then.

So big apology if I haven't managed to get round to commenting on your entry.

Before I tell you about this week's challenge, I need to let you know the winners of challenge 264. There were seven ... yes, seven opportunities to win a prize.

Please note that I publish the prize winners here and on our facebook page, but don't notify winners individually - it is up to you all to check to see if you have won and email me as requested. There are one or two unclaimed prizes, so it's worth having a look back to see if you were a winner.

Please note that my email to send to now is craftyhazelnut@gmail.com

The first winner:  

Number 57: Di, who shared this lovely card:


Congratulations, Di. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your $21 of digital stamps from Bugaboo Stamps.

The second winner:

Number 66: KT Fit Kitty, who shared this lovely tag:


Congratulations, Kitty. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your five digital images from QKR Stampede.

The third winner:

Number 21: Pauline, who shared this lovely card:


Congratulations, Pauline. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your twi images from The stamping boutique.

The fourth winner:

Number 42: Mijn creatie(fje)s, who shared these lovely card:


Congratulations, Mijn. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your stamp set and 6x6 pad of choice from Lawn Fawn.

The fifth winner:

Number 45: Jose, who shared these lovely card:


Congratulations, Jose. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your three digital stamps from Robyn's Fetish.

The sixth winner:

Number 20: Creativeseconds (winter snow), who shared these lovely card:


Congratulations, Creativeseconds.  Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your one bundle from etsy.com/shop/melonheadzdoodles.

The seventh winner:

Number 55: Red Obsessions Cards (Teresa), who shared these lovely card:


Congratulations, Teresa. Please email me at craftyhazelnut@gmail.com so I can arrange for you to receive your $12 voucher to spend at Sami Stamps.

In case you missed this at the beginning of the month:

I am making these changes to the themes for the challenges:

1st Saturday in the month: vintage or anything goes
2nd Saturday in the month: colour, e.g use 'red', a little or a lot
3rd Saturday in the month: cute or anything goes
4th Saturday in the month: use a sentiment
5th Saturday in the month: anything goes


Still always Christmas, of course

I'm hoping this will help you if you wish to plan ahead. There will be scope within each of these challenges to use whatever materials, styles, images etc that you want to.

So, as this is the 4th Saturday in the month, this is the theme for:

Challenge 265

use a sentiment


This week there are four opportunities to win a prize - as usual, winners will be chosen randomly. I do hope we will get a lot of entries this week to encourage these wonderful sponsors.


The first sponsor is Foil Play:


'Foil Play has an enormous selection of crafting staples from classic tried and tested brands for all occasions at great prices. Speedy despatch is always a priority, UK p&p is free on all orders over £10 and you'll get free Kanban die cut toppers if you spend over £20.'

The randomly chosen winner will receive a lucky dip pack of Kanban products.

The second sponsor is Fresh Brewed Designs:


The prize for the randomly chosen winner will be a gift certificate for $10 to spend at Fresh Brewed Designs.

 The third sponsor is Crafts 4 eternity:
who is offering three digital stamps (winner's choice) from the Crafts 4 eternity collection.

 The fourth sponsor is Lozzy:


Lozzy is the leader of A bit more time to craft challenge blog and also More mixed media challenge blog and will generously give the randomly chosen winner their choice of three sets of papers from her wonderful selection. 

If you click the link for A bit more time to craft challenge blog you'll find a link showing all the beautiful sets of papers Lozzy has to offer.

The randomly chosen winner will receive their choice of three sets of papers from Lozzy's wonderful selection.

Please visit the websites of these generous sponsors and support them -
you will be spoiled for choice!

Please look down the sidebar on the right to see all of the sponsors giving out prizes during this year** - quite a few new ones as well as others who have been giving generously in the past. I am so thankful for everyone coming on board to support me. When buying your crafting goodies, please click on the links to see what's on offer in their online stores and support them as much as you can with your orders.

** As this is still early new year, I still need to adjust the side bar to accommodate new sponsors - this is a 'work in progress', so please watch this space!

These cards were made before Christmas, but not shown - I've been too poorly to make anything else this week. These were made out of left over pieces - more about this on My Crafty Outlook here:


Now it's over to you. As usual, you can use any materials, any techniques - and this week I'd like to use a sentiment on your Christmas creation,

I look forward to seeing what you come up with for this challenge - please add a link to your blog post (not your blog, but the actual post where your creation can be found) by 22:00 UK time Friday 29 January 2016. Please include a link to this blogpost within the post for your creation.

You can enter as many times as you wish  and also link to any other challenges that allow you to do so, but new work only, please.

A new challenge will be set on Saturday 30 January 2016 when there will be four chances to win a prize, thanks to generous sponsors.

Please add your link to inlinkz. If by any chance it disappears, please leave a comment with the link to your blog post and I will make sure it is added.

If you haven't done so already, please become a follower and grab my bright pink button to post on your sidebar and help continue to spread the word about this challenge blog - thank you. 

Please also consider going to CHNC Facebook page and clicking 'like' if you haven't done so already and encourage your friends to do the same. We now have over 400 'likes'  - it was lovely to welcome another two again this week, but there's plenty of room for more! I always try to show at least one of my creations for the next challenge in advance and it's a good place to catch up with any news, winners etc.

Don't forget

Please feel free to copy to your sidebar

Don't forget that 'anything goes' monthly challenges are on my Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra blog - you can share any Christmas creation you make throughout the whole month, including those that you link here - there is no restriction on the number of entries you can make throughout the month - the link for CHNC challenge extra for January is here.

I also run a challenge blog called Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - anything goes as long as you use some patterned paper - a randomly chosen prize winner every month. Please click on the link to find out more. If you have used patterned paper for your Christmas creation, why not enter it there too. And please be aware that the Patterned Paper Challenge is not restricted to Christmas - it is for any occasions as long as some patterned paper has been used.

Thank you for your support
I look forward to seeing your entries