It's challenge time for the month of August! There are plenty of ways to win so we encourage you to join in and see if you can win some prizes...

August Theme - Paint, Pens and Puzzles

Let's have some fun this month with this broad category. Submit a papercrafting project that has either used a touch of paint, or a colouring pen, or has a puzzle piece craftily added to it! 

Alternatively, you can use colours from the pallete below and design a card, project or layout based on them. Failing that, use the sketch below as inspiration. So many options!

Colour Challenge

Sketch Challenge

Sketches in Thyme have teamed with Artfull Crafts and have provided a sketch that you may want to use for inspiration. You don't have to stick to the monthly theme if you use these. Sketches are great for cards or layouts - and are perfect for the time-poor crafter, or for late at night when inspiration is lacking...

Prizes

From Kaisercraft's new A Touch of Gold collection, we will create a mixed pack of papers and embellishments for each of the winners from the categories below:

1) Overall Challenge Winner
2) Colour Challenge Winner
3) Sketch Winner
4) First Time Entrant

How to Enter

Entry is SIMPLE!! Click here, upload your image, include a sentence or two and voila - you're entered! Your entry will NOT appear immediately. We will have to activate it from our end - which may take a day or two.

Alternatively, from our website homepage, you can find the challenges and enter by clicking the Gallery Tab along the top menu bar, then click into Competitions. They are all listed there for you to view and enter.

We look forward to being inspired by your work!
Entries close midnight Sunday 30th August
Maximum of 3 entries per person 

THANKS to everyone who entered the June/July Challenge - Anything Goes. We enjoyed looking at the variety of entries and are pleased to announce the winners for this month. It was great seeing all the new entrants this month.

Please head to the Gallery to check out the fabulous entries and leave comments to encourage the crafters. We all love positive feedback.

Liz's farewell note

Today we farewell Bev Cunningham - a real craft talent! She's been an active member on our Design Team and blog for over a year and we have certainly been inspired by her. She's having a busy season in her life and so she's turning her attention away from craft to other important aspects for a while. We wish her all the best and THANK her for her contributions. Best wishes!

Bev's Album and farewell

Hi everyone Bev here today with a mini album I created using the Fly Free Collection by Kaisercraft. This is a great colourful collection and I decided to do a similiar album to what I created with the Antique Bazaar Collection a few months back.  This time I can show you a simple binding technique where you don't need a zutter or cinch just a scoreboard or a scoring tool and ruler, cardstock and a strong double sided tape.

My cover is from a created from box covered in brown ink and white crackle paint. For the binding first cut out a strip of paper that is just slightly shorter than your spine of your cover. Then cut its width so it is two inches wider then the spine. Create two vertical score lines along this strip of card so that the middle section is just a little narrower than the width of the spine and the "flaps" are equal in size. Then make further strips so that they are smaller on the width of the spine but the flaps are the same size as the first strip flaps. Put double sided tape on both sides of the flaps but don't take the backing paper off. Place double sided tape along the back of the spine side of the strips. The bigger the flaps the more secure your album will be (mine are a little too small !).


Take the backing paper off the back of the strips and adhere together like so:


If you have a six by eight inch book you can use the following measurements. Create your cardstock pages by cutting eight pieces of card 5 inches wide and 12 inches long. Create a scoreline at six inches and fold in half. Here is an non folded but decorated page showing the score line. It is easier to decorate after the book is assembled!


 Once each page is folded insert a flap with backing tape removed in the open side of the page so each inner side of page is against the flap.  Hope that makes sense - once you create a mini using this binding system it is easy to recreate it.

Here is my cover and a close up of the cover:



These are the album pages which just need photos and journalling:




Hope you enjoyed viewing my album today. This is my last project as a Design Team member at Artfull Crafts as life has got too busy for me and just don't have a lot of time to do crafting. The Design team kits have been so amazing!

Thank you so much Liz for having me on the design team its been awesome and I have loved the kits!
Thank you to our readers, customers and other team members for all your lovely comments on my projects. I will still be creating and you can find my creations on my blog. Thanks again!

Hi there Christine B here today. This week I am back with some cards I made using Kaisercraft's Botanica Collection...




This Collection is one of my favourites and I have nearly used up every little piece!
I have gotten enthused into making clusters of flowers lately - adding various bits and bobs to each cluster. Some twine, stamens, metal charms and pearls!
For the 3rd card I have even made my own larger flowers using the Cheery Lyn Gardenia Strip die- B339. Liz is happy to order in any dies for you if they are not in stock.
I am back to sewing on my cards too, now that I have finally gotten my sewing machine fixed!

TFL

Happy Creating!

Christine

Hi there! It's Lisa here, and today I have quick post featuring a layout made using Kaisercraft's Fly Free collection to share with you. :) This range has lots of lovely patterns, and plenty of bright pink & green which are nice & cheerful at this time of year!

I used a piece of plan white cardstock as my base, and added six different patterns from the collection on top. I did this by cutting pages from the small paper pad on the diagonal, and piecing them together into squares, patchwork-style. The patterns may be vastly different, but the shared colour theme helps pull them together into a cohesive unit.




I used a couple of the patterned punched borders (also from the small paper pad) along the top and left hand edges to "break" all the straight lines a little. My photo (black & white, purposely chosen so as not to compete with the bright colours) was placed a little off-centre, and I then added a group of floral embellishments on the bottom right-hand side, made up of some of the Collectables and a couple of other bits and pieces from my stash in matching colourways. The gorgeous butterfly is also from the Collectables.

A simple layout, but a fun way to use a variety of papers at the same time. You can find the lovely Fly Free collection here.

Thanks so much for looking, and I'll see you again soon! :)

Cheers,
Lisa

   Hi there, how are you? Christine S. here posting a recycled project today.  I've been tidying some boxes lately & have kept a few to recycle, & this de-cluttering got my brain flowing with ideas.  Hence, I've made a door hanger out of a 9"x4" cardboard from the scraps of my Secret Garden stash.  As mentioned from some posts a couple of months ago, this collection is super pretty, so I had to transform this plain cardboard into something pretty.  Here's what I made:

I've added some glimmer mist, Kaisercraft flowers & a Prima key resin to finish it all off.  Here's one last look of some Secret Garden goodness:

 

Folding piles of washing is a bit more enjoyable now, as I get to look at layers of pretty flowers.  Don't forget to check out the Secret Garden collection here.  As always, thanks for popping in & I hope you get some time to craft in this wet winter weather.

Until then,

Christine S.

Hi everyone Bev here today sharing a layout using the Botanica Collection by Kaisercraft.  This time I have used the softer colours.

I layered some strips of paper then just layered the collectables, doilies and flowers. With this layout I decided not to use sprays and texture paste and have a "cleaner" look which has made the photos stand out a bit more.  A circle photo also softens a layout when layered with a paper doily. The little bird house is a Prima resin embellishment.


 Thanks for visiting the blog today!

 I've kept embellishment to a minimum because the background paper is just so busy.


More journalling on this little cut apart.


I water coloured my doily green to make it match.

Journalling on the tiny tag, which I attached with a brad.  The phrase stickers were perfect accents.


A close up of my hand stitching and messy background!


Thanks for looking!

You can purchase the Fly Free collection in the shop here.

Enjoy your weekend
Melissa :)

Hi Everyone!

Have you seen Kaisercraft's Little One yet? oh my its gorgeous!!! Ive used it this week to make some baby gifts for some friends.
My go to gifts for new babies is wooden letters - they're so easy to decorate and with all the scraps you can make cute cards :)  Today I have two to show you.



L is for Louie!
Instead of my usual use one sheet of paper, I took three different pieces and lined them up across the letter.  To hide the join I just used some of the strips that come across the bottom of the paper.  decoration was easy with Collectables and Ive layered some with foam for dimension - a bit of twine and an old MM tag attached and it was done!


Two cards.  The first made with some flowers from my stash, strips of leftover paper - simple and easy.


This one was made with leftover scraps as well with the addition of the Collectables and some very old flowers from my stash, a bit of twine again and its done.



K is for Kate!
This time instead of paper as my base, I used plain old cardstock and inked around the edges with pinecone.  The birdcage stamp is from a BoBunny set called Romance.


I created a cluster of embellishments using the Collectables and die cut leaves and flowers using the paper pad.  Those buttons are part of the new Artfull Crafts Embellishment range and they come in a variety of colours!


I had a bit of fun with this card!  I used some of the die cuts from the paper pad, layered with some of the Collectables again, flicked some BoBunny Glimmer Spray across the background and then randomly stamped.



This last card is made with the leftovers from the DT kit and as leftovers go I think it turned out pretty good :)

Remember my last post?  You can see it here - but we have a winner and the lucky person is Barbara Tibbles!!!!!!   Congratulations Barbara there is a RAK coming your way with the promised card :)  Enjoy!

See you next time!