Hey everyone!
Happy Monday! I know, I know, Mondays are tough. We all need a little tonic to help us get through the day. Luckily there’s a new challenge in town to help us do just that – the Cure For The Monday Blues Challenge!!
This is a challenge which I’ve created myself, yay me! Every Monday I will bring you a photo inspiration challenge, with images that focus on lifting us out of those Monday doldrums and all inspired to create!! I’ll be asking you to play along as well and linking up your creations! At the end of each week I’ll pick a Top 3 who’ll be my Cures For The Monday Blues and receive a special badge to add to your blog!!
This challenge is in its eleventh week now – wow! Thank you to everyone who has given it love and support and helped it to grow! Please read on as I have some news!
I’m making a few changes to the Challenge which I hope will result in a better Challenge for all!
- I’m giving you two extra hours to play! From now on, the deadline for submitting entries will now be 11pm UK time/6pm EST! I know a few people have missed the deadline before because of the time difference so hopefully this will help you out!
And there’s more!
I really want to encourage and reward repeat participants of this challenge. I appreciate you so much. Therefore, I am now opening up the challenge to search for a Guest Designer each month! Read on for more details!
I will pick one designer a month to join me in a Cure For The Monday Blues Challenge. The Guest Designer will create a project for one of the weeks in that month and be showcased on my blog when that challenge plays out! The first Guest Designer will be selected very shortly and featured in April!
- The Guest Designer will receive a special badge to promote themselves on their blog and social media channels, where appropriate. I will also give you a shout-out on my FB, promote your work, and add your project to a special new Pinterest Board reserved just for Guest Designers!
- In addition to this, as a special ‘Thank You’ for their efforts, the Guest Designer will be gifted with a $15 gift certificate to an online crafting store of their choice!
- Guest Designers will be selected from previous participants of the challenge. To be eligible you must have created and submitted to at least 3 previous challenges and been chosen as a Top 3 Cure at least once. The entries/wins don’t have to be within a single month, if you have entered 3 times in the whole history of the challenge and won once then you are eligible! I’m hoping this will encourage and reward true supporters of the challenge!
- Guest Designers will be required to promote the Cure For The Monday Blues Challenge and encourage others to play along during the week they are featured (and any other time you wish to, of course!). You are required to post your project at the same time as the challenge goes live. Promotion can be on your blog and/or social media channels of your choice. Some of you are true lovers of the challenge and already give it shout-outs which I am so thankful for! Together we can help this challenge continue to grow!
Disclaimer:- please note that, on occasion, I may feature a ‘Special Guest Designer’ for the challenge who may not fit the criteria above, but who can provide exceptional promotion of the challenge. I’m not even sure if this will even ever happen (as I’m thinking of the Jennifer McGuires/Julie Ebersoles of this world!) but if it does ever occur I hope you will understand!
I hope you are as excited about these changes as I am! I really want this to feel like a challenge that you truly get something out of and feel a part of with me! I would love some feedback on these changes and the challenge itself! What works? What doesn’t? Please let me know!
Right then. Back to business, lol!
Before we get to this week’s challenge I want to thank all of you that submitted entries for the last challenge. They were all truly beautiful entries and you did not make my life easy when choosing the winners!! I really wanted to pick you all!! Here are my Top 3 Cures For The Monday Blues:
Winners please contact me to be sent your challenge winner’s badges!
Yet again I had some absolute stunners for entries, and as a result it was an almost painful process narrowing it down to a Top 3! All of you have really been putting in some amazing designs and it makes me so happy when you play, so please keep playing along!
So are you excited to get this week’s challenge under way?! Let’s see what’s up for this week’s inspiration:
Have you noticed that a lot of my inspirations for this challenge seem to be bedrooms?! lol! I guess maybe my subconscious is telling me it wishes I could stay in bed on Mondays! Nevertheless, isn’t this week’s inspiration so bright and cheerful? So uplifting with all those pops of patterns and colour, and affirming phrases!
Here’s my take on the inspiration:
I love how this turned out!
I started with a Sea Glass card base and set about creating my sentiment. I partially stamped sentiments from Neat & Tangled’s My Favorite and Simon Says Stamp’s From Us sets using Versamark ink and heat embossed with WOW! Opaque Bright White embossing powder.
Next I used the letters from Mama Elephant’s Flashy Letters set to create the ‘amazing’ sentiment and heat embossed it with Zing Butter embossing powder. I really need to buy a WOW! alternative to this powder as I still do not like the granule size creating less crisp embossing. Remind me to go shopping!
I heat embossed a small part of a sentiment from Love Quotes to give the ‘so’, then stamped the little accent from Papertrey’s Congratulations set using Raspberry Fizz ink, and the little heart from Love Quotes using Versafine Onyx Black ink. And now onto that final finishing touch – that crown! It is actually a Vintage Trinket from Prima which I painted with Distress Paints in Black Soot and Picked Raspberry! I adhered it in place with Pinflair Glue Gel. Isn’t it awesome?! Card done!
So now it’s your turn to cure the Monday Blues! Here’s how to participate in the challenge!
The Rules
- Create a brand new project using the photo inspiration
- Post on your blog or to an online photo album. Ensure you link up to this challenge post in your blog post and include the inspiration photo
- If it is not obvious how the image inspired you then please explain your process in your post
- Link up your creations to this post using the Inlinkz below. Please use the link to your actual post rather than the link to your blog
- You can enter as many times as you like!
- The deadline for linking submissions is Sunday 6th April at 11pm BST/6pm EST
PS: if you would like to check out all of the previous challenge images you can see them here on my Pinterest board!
Congratulations to this weeks winners!! Their cards were amazing. I think all the changes you suggest will be a great idea and add a little more bite to the challenge. I love all the photos you choose, there are so many ways to interpret them and look forward to more great inspiration!!
Fabulous card, Taheerah. Wonderful changes are afoot too, looking forward to seeing the guest designers 🙂
Awesome card, Taheerah! Love that crown! Great changes and additions to the challenge. Hope I can play along more often. My mojo has seemed to have left the building. 🙁
Amazing card, Taheerah, and such great changes and additions to your challenge … look forward to seeing what your GDs create! Anita 🙂
Awesome sauce!!…
Love the crown that you ended up with. Such a cool card!
Awesome card and very cool changes!! 😉
That's cool news! Your challenge is a lot of fun and always very inspiring! I have a hard time focusing on just one idea!! 🙂 So I've decided that I just have to pick one part and sit down and play with it until I create something. I think that's the joy of it. Your card turned out to be funky! I love how you painted the crown.
Woo Hoo! Thank you so much! Can you tell I'm excited? Doing a happy dance here!
I like the new inspiration photo and your card is great – especially the painted crown. The changes sound good to me too. I am always on the last minute, so putting the time back to 11pm will help me loads – thanks!
Love your take on the inspiration photo, Taheerah! Sorry that I have been missing coming here to admire your awesomeness. Hope you are doing well. GREAT changes with the challenge BTW!
Very fun, glad to see the new adds to the challenge! Love your card as well, super fab!
What exciting changes! love the colors on this happy photo!
Ooooh, thank you, thank you! Fantastic news, too! Ahem, you know… ahem… about my issues with time difference, LOL!
And what to say about your brilliant card? Perfect rendition of the pic… oh, the crown! See? We have a crown after all 😉 xoxo
I love your inspiration photo and the card you made with it, T.! It's perfect!
I love the idea of having a guest designer — and I'd love to be considered to be one of them. 🙂
Exciting changes…congrats to the winners and LOVE the new challenge. Awesome card…that sea glass base is gorgeous and I love the pop from the crown embellie {which rocks!}.