Introducing the Newest 52CCT Design Team Members

Our recent design team call was met with wonderful enthusiasm! We were honored to have so many of you who want to be part of our team. After a good bunch of viewing, re-viewing and viewing again we did make our selections and are thrilled to announce our "newbies" to the 52CCT design team. Please welcome.... Deborah Frings, Patricia Hays and Sarah Stone. Let's hear a little bit about each of them shall we? 

First meet Deborah Frings

Hi, I’m Deborah - and right about now, I’m jumping up and down with excitement!! I’m thrilled to be picked to join the design team here at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown. Thank you ladies :)

I have always crafted in some form or other. I started by making cards and little books as a child, moving onto embroidery and later cross-stitch. I’ve always taken photos and made my own scrapbooks, although not with lots of embellishments and paper like you get now, just memory books. And I made the odd card or two. And recently I even tried my hand at knitting!!

I became seriously hooked on card making after receiving a handmade card from a friend. I started off small with a few boxes and the kitchen worktop as my studio. When we moved to North Wales in 2006 my small craft space got somewhat bigger, and now that I’m in the US my craft room has exploded!!  

You can see Deborah's lovely creations at Deborah's Gems.

And now meet Patricia Hays

Hi there! I'm Patricia, and I am delighted to be one of the newest design team members here at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown! Now that I've settled down from my initial happy dance, I'm looking forward to working with the rest of the team and seeing the Christmas creations shared by the challenge participants.

I honestly can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't doing some sort of artsy-crafty things. Over the years I've enjoyed crewel embroidery, counted cross-stitch, latch hook rug making, and scrapbooking. About 12 years ago, one of my friends became a Stampin' Up demonstrator, and I did the polite, supportive thing of attending her Open House... and promptly became addicted to making cards. The rest is history. :)

I've lived in Virginia all my life, although I've traveled and moved throughout the state. I currently live in the Shenandoah Valley with my husband of 20 years and our two teenage sons. Both of the boys are active in band - concert band, symphonic band, jazz band, and marching band - so that keeps us busy with practices, competitions, football games, and concert events. I work as a substitute teacher at the elementary school my sons attended when they were young. The flexible hours allow me a lot of crafting time on my non-working days. It's a pretty wonderful life!

I blog frequently at Thinking of Inking. I hope you'll stop by there for a visit!

And then there is Sarah Stone

Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm so excited to be part of this design team! Making Christmas cards all year round is just about a dream come true!

I was raised in Ohio, then I studied German in Berlin, which is where I met my husband. He is from Alabama, so we moved there after we got married in 2004. We moved to Wisconsin in 2010 when my husband found work here, and we're still here. I have 3 children, ages 6, 3, and 1, two girls and a boy.

My mom got me into scrapbooking when I started college, and I still scrapbook all my pictures. I have always made homemade cards, but I really got into it when I started consulting for Close To My Heart.

In addition to scrapbooking and stamping, I also like to read, crochet and knit, cook, and watch TV with my hubby. I am also a Mary Kay consultant, and I babysit to make some extra money. But the most important part of my life is God and his Son, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He saved me from my sins by his blood when I was little, and I am eternally grateful and can't wait to spend eternity with him in heaven. I love my church family, and try to serve at  church in any way I can.

 If you like challenges, come check out my Close To My Heart color dare blog, Color My Heart. I also have a 365 recipe blog: 365 No Repeats. My personal blog is Sarah Stone Creations.

So there they are - aren't they all just lovely? We are excited to have them join us and we know you will love seeing their wonderful creations each week too.

Please check back soon for the start of  a new month of challenges.  Louise will be our hostess this next month and she has some great challenges in store.  And remember to visit us on  Wednesday to see who was awared the Top Honor and Honorable Mentions for the February Felt Challenge.   

February Theme Challenge Honors Awards

Quick Note: CHANGE TO WINNERS POST (BEGINNING IN MARCH).  

Hi there, before we get started on this past week's challenge winners we have some news to share with you.  Our DT members have put our heads together and decided that we are going to start posting the winners each week on the Wednesday following each Saturday's challenge.  We think this will be a fun mid-week time to pop in and see who was awarded the HONORS, and it will give us a bit more time to make our decisions each week. Sometimes you all make this really hard for us to pick our winners!  This change will begin with the first winners post in March. So that means the winners for the challenge that just started this last week in February (ends on March 1st) will be posted on Wednesday, March 6th.  We are also switching the format up a bit so that the TOP HONOR is mentioned first and the HMs are next.  We hope you like the new format and we sure thank you for continuing to share your beautiful cards with us each week.

Ok, I know you are anxious to see who was awarded the honors for this last week - so let's get on with it shall we. Oh boy did we see a lot of LOVEly cards this weeks using HEARTS or sentiments of LOVE!  It was so much fun to see that incorporated into the Christmas theme.  As usual, it wasn't easy for us to pick our TOP HONOR and HONORABLE MENTIONS from all the wonderful entries. But we did manage to do it and here they are:

Our TOP HONOR this week goes to  Daen'Ys for her CAS creation with HEART - Congrats to you Daen'Ys, make sure you grab your badge to display proudly on your blog.

#16 - Daen'Ys

Our HONORABLE MENTIONS FOR THIS WEEK (in numerical order of entry) are:

#1 Meg

#4 Rocky

#9 Yvonne Garner

#14 Lacy Stephens

#18 Sandie

(To see our HM's beautiful cards, just click on the link for each of their names and you will be able to visit them and leave a little love).  

A Big Congrats to all of our lovely winners - please grab your badges and display them proudly.
Thanks to all of you who continue to join us each week - we so love seeing your creations.  We are excited to see that we are getting some new faces and creations as well - so glad you also have found us.

The current challenge is an Embellishment Challenge chosen by yours truly (Danielle).  I hope you don't find it too challenging.  I know you can do it - I've seen many of you rise to the challenge this month so I can't wait to see what you make.  Check it out and please play along.

February Embellishment Challenge

Hello, and welcome to another fabulous week for Christmas Card Challenges here at 52CCT!!!  This is the last week that the darling Danielle will play hostess for February and she's asked that you make some holiday creations using FELT.

Here's some inspiration~

And some cards by the DT~

Danielle

Ruth

Mynnette

Louise

Please make sure to follow these rules when you play along with us here at 52CCT! :)

*Please link back to our blog in your post so that others can join in the fun.
*We would love it if you added our button to the side of your blog
*Please make sure to link to your POST, not your blog.
*Please make sure NOT to back link.
*In order to be considered for Top Honor or Honorable Mention, you must link up by Friday at 6:00pm GMT.
*You are free to enter this challenge and 10 others only.
*We'd really appreciate it if you'd turn off word verification so that we can comment more easily! We know a lot of you do this for safety, but it takes a very long time to comment when verification is activated, and you may lose your comments from us...just sayin'. ;)

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February Theme Challenge

*****SEE THE WINNERS POST FOR THE FEBRUARY COLOR CHALLENGE BELOW*******

Hello there!  Since we celebrated the season of  LOVE this week (Valentine's day) I decided to carry this forward to Christmas too.  After all isn't Christmas also the season of LOVE?  I think so!  As your hostess for this week's challenge I would like to see you create a Christmas card that has a heart (hearts) on it - and/or expresses a sentiment of LOVE.
                                                    Here's this week's theme inspiration~

So let's get started and see what our fabulous DT has made for you

Jacqueline

Danielle

Louise

Ruth

Mynnette

Looking forward to visiting your blogs this week and seeing your own fabulous creations!  Just link up below and we will come visit.  

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Honorable Mention and Top Honors - February Color Combo

Oh boy!  I did challenge you a bit this week with my very unusual color combo this past week - but can I just say... WOW did you all rise to the challenge and produce some gorgeous cards that really made that  non-traditional color combo rock!! We were very impressed with the level of creativity we saw this week - thanks so much for your continued participation and support :o)

So I know you are anxious to see who was chosen for Honorable Mentions and the Top Honor and I won't keep you waiting any longer.  We had a very close vote with a couple of ties.  Instead of doing a tie breaker I decided to award a couple extra this week - you did after all earn it :o)

The HONORABLE MENTIONS this week go to:

#2 - Susie

#10 - Kylie

#12 Patricia Hays

#14 Rocky

#15 and #16 - Daen'Ys

     

    

And TOP HONOR this week goes to the fabulous card we received via email from Viji.

  

Congrats to all of you! As I said earlier - your really rocked this challenge!  Grab your badges and display them proudly - great job!  Don't forget to check out the Facebook Page to see who was awarded our Facebook spotlight.  

For the challenge this week I decided to share a little LOVE with you all.  Check out what the FABULOUSLY talented DT has come up with for your inspiration and then please decide to play along - we love seeing you.  

E-mail entry

Here is a card made by my friend Viji - she is in my craft group and would like to take part in this week's challenge - she doesn't have a blog yet so I am uploading it here for you all to see - please feel free to leave your comments in the usual place below - Jacqueline.

February Color Challenge

***PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR LAST WEEK'S WINNERS***

Sorry folks, I jumped the gun and chose the wrong time in scheduler for the winners post - my face is so red! Usually you see the winners and then the next challenge. This week I guess we will go in reverse order.  Thanks for rollin' with the changes for me :o) - Danielle

Welcome to the second week of our February challenges!   If you are just finding our challenge - Welcome - and if you've been playing along with us so far this year, Welcome Back! We are so glad that you've joined us!  Playing along with our challenge each week is a fabulous way to get your Christmas cards done is a relaxing and fun manner.  If you play each week, by the time Christmas comes around this year you will be ready and not stressed about how many cards you need or want to make.  Doesn't that sound like a great idea? I know it works really well for me :o)

As your hostess for the month of February, I (Danielle) decided to pick a non-traditional color combo for you to try.

Here's the color inspiraiton for you this week~

 Now at first glance this might seem a bit outside of your comfort zone - but check out what the DT has prepared for you....

Ruth

Louise

Mynnette

Danielle

Jacqueline

Easy right?  After seeing the DT card creations are you ready now to jump into your craft space and start creating a fabulous non-traditional Chrismas card using this colors?  I sure hope so! Can't wait to see what you come up with this week! 

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February Sketch Challenge Top Honors & Honorable Mentions

Greetings all! We didn't have a tremendous amount of entries last week for the February sketch challenge - but we did have a TREMENDOUS display of talent and inspiration.  Some of  you followed the sketch exactly, some of you followed it closely and some of you made it your own but kept the essence of the sketch.  Oh boy... you sure didn't make our job easy as far as selecting the Top Honors go!  But somehow we did manage to make our selections, so without further ado here we go.  Our Honorable Mentions this weeks go to (in numerical order of entry):

#1 Meg

#3 Patti Corriere

#6 - Brenda

#10 Sandie

and our TOP HONOR for the February Sketch Challenge goes to:

#13 - Deborah Frings

 Congratulations to all of you!! Don't forget to grab your badges and display them proudly on your blogs.  Don't forget to check our Facebook page in a couple days to see our Facebook Favorites too.

The next February Challenge is a non-traditional color challenge chosen by Danielle (me :o)).  The DT members have come up with some fabulous inspiration to get you going.  Check it out! I hope you will decide to join us! 

January Technique Challenge Honours

It's time to reveal our January Technique Challenge honours.  My goodness, you made some wonderful triple time stamped cards - very impressive as so many of you said it was your first time attempting the technique! Well done everybody!  So here are the honours:

Honourable Mentions in numerical order:

#1 Meg

# 4 Veronica

#19 Deborah Frings

#21 Rocky

#24 Patricia Hays

Top Honour goes to:

#14 Anita

Many congratulations to our honoured ladies - please collect your blog badges and bask in the glow of pride!   

Don't forget to pop over to Facebook to see who received our Facebook Favourite honour this week! 

February Sketch Challenge

Hello and Happy February! Can you believe how fast the year is moving on already?  I (Danielle) get the honor of being the hostess for the month of February and have started us out with a sketch challenge.  I think sketches are a great staring point to get your creative juices flowing.  Hope you don't find it too challenging! I think it has a ton of fabulous possibilities and can't wait to see what you come up with!  So let's get started and see the sketch and what the fabulous DT has come up with to inspire you:

Here's our sketch this week~

And check out the inspiration from our DT~

Danielle

Mynnette

Ruth

Louise

Jacqueline

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