Week 44 - Bright Colours and Sparkle

Hello everyone, Happy Friday and we're all hoping that our US followers on the East coast are all safe and well after the nasty Hurricane Sandy. We send anyone affected our very best wishes and hope that you haven't got too much damage.

Before we get to all the gorgeous inspiration this week, we also have a little reminder about our DT call which closes on 5th November so if you're interested please be quick! Here are all the details...

We are looking for some extra talent for our International Design Team, so if you'd like to be part of our hugely popular team and live OUTSIDE THE UK then get applying now! You will need to be familiar with using digistamps as well as using normal stamps as we are primarily a digital company, but we have lots of great things on the go in addition to this blog, so we all always have lots of creative fun at Polkadoodles.

We now need to let you know the winners for our Week 42 Autumn Challenge, there were loads of lovely entries so thank you all so much for those but unfortunately there can only be 3 winners and these lucky ladies are:
First Place - wins a Colour Therapy and Sundae of Seasons CD -  wisienor  please use verification code PD1W4442
Second Place - also wins a Colour Therapy and Sundae of Seasons CD - Claire Day  please use verification code PD1W4442
Third Place - please claim your blinkie from the sidebar - Sue Bearhouse

Congratulations!  Wisienor and Claire, please email Nikky for how details on how to claim your prizes - all the blinkies can be found in the sidebar.  Please remember to add the verification code and the challenge week in the subject field on your email - you must use the code given above to claim your prize otherwise we cannot release it.

Now for this week's challenge which is:
                                               Bright Colours and Sparkle

We have a few little rules which makes our life a lot easier when we come visiting your blog:
1.  Please follow the challenge theme!
2.  Only enter your creation into a maximum of 10 challenges including Polkadoodles
3.  Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry
4.  And please, no back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our top three voting
5.  If you have word verification on your blog it really does slow us down when leaving comments - please consider turning off word verification especially as the comment moderation has a spam section.

Good luck with the challenge - the deadline for entries is Sunday 11 November at 12noon GMT and the Winner will receive a Picknix CD for the best entry! Woohoo!

Fliss - A very festive card from me this week using elements all from the Here Comes Christmas CD which has oodles of papers and images to make the Christmas card task easier. I chose the cute carol singers, die cutting the image into a circle and adding to a card blank covered with some plaid paper and bright green card from my stash embossed with a holly sprig folder. The sparkle is the bright pink glittery border and I added decoupaged holly to embellish together with a sentiment I die cut and prettied up with tiny heart buttons.

JAN:  I thought I would have a change from Christmas this week and made a bright cheery card for a 'Special Day'.  The square paper pieces are all printed from the 'Sugar Plum Daisy CD' and are inked around the edges with matching distress ink.  I made the centre panel on my pc, using letters from the 'Picknix 2 - Gingerbread Twist CD' to spell the word 'Sparkle' (I exported them to Paint and played around with the colour to make them all bright).  The sentiment is also made on my pc and I added a sparkly star (printed from the 'Sundae of Seasons CD') then treated it to a generous helping of glitter for some lovely sparkle.

Anjie This week I've used bright blues, greens and oranges to create a bonfire night themed card.

The images, papers and fireworks are from the Sundae Of Seasons CD. The images are coloured with ProMarkers. The flower and leaves are from the Marianne Designs Floral 3 dies set. The flower is made using 3 flowers with the inner one curled inwards to give the effect of it still being partly in bud. I've finished it off with a Doodle Dewdrop in the centre of the flower and three at the top of the card.

Karen : Another Christmas card from me for this challenge.  The BP, sentiment and bauble are from the Picknix 2 CD. I printed the bauble out 4 times, cut them out, folded them in half and attached the halves together to create the 3d effect.  I also covered all the red pattern with red glitter, though it doesn't really show on this picture.

Here's a side view so you can see the bauble better.

Kitty - I decided to make a nice and simple card using the Here Comes Christmas CD. It has so many fabulous images on so I tried to add as many of my favourites as I could! The papers and images are all from the the CD too. I decoupaged the flower & added the robin with foam pads to make him 3D. There is a lot of sparkle on here but it doesn't show too well.

Fabulous inspiration don't you agree! Now it's your turn and you have until 12 noon on Sunday 11 November to enter. Good luck!

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Week 43 - Christmas Card And Add Kraft!

Hey everyone!

Before we get to all the gorgeous inspiration this week, we also have some exciting news to share!...

We are looking for some extra talent for our International Design Team, so if you'd like to be part of our hugely popular team and live OUTSIDE THE UK then get applying now! You will need to be familiar with using digistamps as well as using normal stamps as we are primarily a digital company, but we have lots of great things on the go in addition to this blog, so we all always have lots of creative fun at Polkadoodles.

A couple of weeks ago we were really pleased to welcome Helen, Karen and Eva to the Polkadoodles UK team and we are also extremely chuffed to welcome the lovely Anjie to the team too! We just know you're going to love what our new teamies bring to you and they've already been giving us loads of inspiration and ideas and we can't wait to see all the applications for the International team, we've had lots already in 2 days so PLEASE apply asap - you've got to be in it to win it, right??!... We know there are sooo many talented people out there and we want you wherever you are!...

The challenge this week is to:

Make A Christmas Card and Add Kraft

The winner from this challenge will receive a copy of the very fab Studio 12 Picknix 2 cd - Gingerbread Twist!  Don't forget to follow our rules which are below.

Before we look at the Design Team samples, we need to announce the top three from Challenge 41 which was 'Halloween'.  Once again, we had some stunning entries and some very spooky ones too but there can only be one top three and here they are:

First Place:  £5 voucher to spend instore - Dawn - please use verification code PD1W4341
Second Place:  Sue Bearhouse - please claim your blinkie from the sidebar
Third Place:  Karli - please claim your blinkie from the sidebar

Congratulations!  Dawn please email Nikky for how to claim your £5 voucher to spend instore - all the blinkies can be found in the sidebar.  Please remember to add the verification code and the challenge week in the subject field on your email - you must use the code given above to claim your prize otherwise we cannot release it.

We have a few little rules which makes our life a lot easier when we come visiting your blog:
1.  Please follow the challenge theme!
2.  Only enter your creation into a maximum of 10 challenges including Polkadoodles
3.  Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry
4.  And please, no back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our top three voting
5.  If you have word verification on your blog it really does slow us down when leaving comments - please consider turning off word verification especially as the comment moderation has a spam section.

Good luck with the challenge - deadline for entries is Sunday 4 November at 12noon GMT.

Ruth:  I've used a kraft card base, inked the edges (to hide my rubbish cutting!) and added faux stitching around the edges.  Sentiment is a stamp from the not yet released Pen and Paper Circle edition 5 (get yours ordered now!)  I've made the stocking from my own template and papers from Here Comes Christmas.  Ribbon from my stash and not a bit of glitter in sight!!

 Norine:  This was another fun challenge for me....once I get my head around doing what the challenge dictates, lol!  I ended up making 2 cards again this week!  I really love the clean and simple style of the first one.  I used a digi stamp from the Gingerbread Twist Picknix cd for the pine bough and then flicked white paint over the whole card front for snow.  The Season's Greeting's sentiment is a cut file from the Here Comes Xmas cd that I cut out using my Silhouette.

 For this card I used images from the Sundae of Season's cd, photo-shopped them all together and then printed it onto 140# water color paper.  After printing it, I did a water color wash around the outside edge, being careful not to let the water touch the printed image.  The sentiment is printed onto vellum and banner folded for some dimension.

Eva - For this card I used images and design paper from Picknix 2 - Gingerbread Twist. I coloured these in with Pro Markers.  I also printed out the letters JOY and some holly from the Pen & Paper 4 CD. I used die cuts for the hearts and added some stick on gems, ribbon and hat pins.

Anjie - For my card I've used an image and papers from Pretty Sweet. The image is coloured with ProMarkers. The frame around the image is the waste from Marianne Designer Doily Die, as is the silver flower.

Anne - I'll own up now, I tried and failed miserably:(  Three times I printed this image onto t-shirt transfer papers and not once did it turn out well enough for me to use.  In the end, after many, many swear words and feet stomping among other things I gave in and just made a card using papers  from Magical Winter 1 and the image, embellies and sentiment is from Gingerbread Twist.

Miria For my easel card I used colour stampies and paper from Here Comes Christmas cd 

I printed  the tag and ticket on kraft cardstock, just added a little glossy accents on holly and berries, then buttons and ribbon as embellies.

Clare - I have used Kraft card for the base of  my make and the images and sentiment are from both Sundae of Seasons and Here Comes Christmas CD's. I have distressed both layer's of  my Bazzill card. For the snow on the reindeer and tree's I have used Polar White Flower Soft along with some Diamond Stickles. The wooden snowflake embellishments are by Kar's, the red pearls from Kaiser Craft and finally I have used  deckled edge oval Nestabilities.

Good luck with the challenge - deadline for entries is Sunday 4 November at 12noon GMT.

Design Team Call