Winner of CHNC challenge extra for December

Happy New Year

There were loads of entries for November's challenge - I was staggered when the entries started mounting up for December and, in fact, amounted to slightly more - what a fantastic surprise. Thank you so much, everyone, for making this challenge blog so special.

Unfortunately, there can only be one winner of the December challenge of the $21 of digital stamps from my generous sponsor, Bugaboo Stamps. Using random the winner is:

Number 419: Jessi, with this lovely card

Congratulations, Jessi. Please email me at hazelharris@ntlworld.com so that I can arrange for you to claim your prize.

I'm excited to be starting the new year with a fabulous Design Team of talented ladies.

January's challenge is here

I look forward to seeing your entries

And, once again, there will be a prize of $21 of digital stamps from Bugaboo Stamps

for the randomly chosen winner

Introducing the Design Team

I am thrilled to say that the seven talented ladies invited to join me on the Design Team from January 2014 have all accepted.

Let me introduce ourselves:

Hazel

'I'm Hazel, known in the crafting world as Craftyhazelnut. I live in Bromley, part of Greater London in the UK. I'm 66 and am married to John, who fully supports me in my obsession for accumulating (and using) crafting goodies. I've always been interested in crafting in one form or another; when I was younger I did a lot of knitting, embroidery, crocheting etc but over the past thirteen years or so have been more involved in papercrafting, particularly cardmaking, although I dabble in scrapbooking from time to time.

Three years ago I started my weekly Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenges to help me focus on making Christmas cards throughout the year - I always need a large stock by September/October as I sell to raise money for charity, particularly for Tearfund. Having successfully run the weekly Christmas challenge blog for two years, I started the monthly Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge extra blog where it's always 'anything goes as long as it's Christmas'. I have been overwhelmed at the response and decided by the end of the year that I need a Design Team, so here we are!

Deanne

My name is Deanne Clarke-Saunders. My hubby and I live in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. I’m an elementary teacher but currently not working. I have always enjoyed playing with paper, scissors, glue, and ESPECIALLY crayons and pencil crayons, ever since I’ve been a small child. I just couldn’t stop playing, so I continued by scrapbooking and card-making! I love it!!! My hubby calls me a paper hoarder. He just MAY be right, but I’d never tell him that!!! A man doesn’t need to know he’s right!!! haha!

Heather

I'm so excited to be joining the brand new Design Team for Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra. I live in Southern Rhode Island (USA) with my wonderful husband and three adorable girls. I started making cards about 12 years ago when someone introduced me to Stampin' Up! but really fell in love with papercrafting about 5 years ago. I stick mainly to card making, though every once in a while I foray off into the 'off the page' world. I thought originally that I would get into scrapbooking and that has just never happened. I am training up the next generation of paper crafters as my oldest daughter is starting to create cards on her own. And whatever the younger two see her doing, that is what they want to do. We go through a LOT of paper and tape at our house!

Helen

My name is Helen and I've been a card maker for many years. I particularly love stamping and Promarkers and my style is mostly clean and simple. I work for my local Abbeyfield Society as an activities coordinator and also teach card making workshops for Little Claire at weekends. As well as Little Claire, I'm also lucky enough to design for Pink Gem, Nutcrafters, Crafts-Too and Card Creations Plus and I'm part of the team for several challenge blogs. I love making Christmas cards and am really excited to be part of the team for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Extra Challenge.

Renate

My name is Renate Valstar. I live in The Netherlands, at the westcoast near the sea. I've been married and I have a son and a daughter. I'll created cards for a few years. Starting with 3-D, now the most of my cards are made with stamps. I am very pleased that I've been asked for the DT team.

Rocky

I've been making things for as long as I can remember thanks to the encouragement from my Mum. I've tried all sorts of crafts but papercraft is my favourite. I'm a freelance demonstrator and designer based in Norfolk, England with my Husband, Son and Cat. I belong to a few design teams but this is my first Christmas one and I'm really excited to have a reason to make Christmassy projects all year round.

Rose

Hi, my name is Rose and I am married to a wonderful man that not only supports my crafty (obsession) hobby but encourages it. We are empty nester's with just our two spoiled fur babies Precious and Q left at home.

I am thrilled that Hazel has asked me to be on her design team as I love making Christmas cards all year long.

Suze

Hello! My name is Suze and I live in New Zealand.

I have been card-making off and on for a number of years since a friend introduced me to rubber stamps although I now work mostly with digi stamps. My style is mainly CAS but I'm trying to learn new techniques. I first started blogging my cards in February 2012 so that I could enter some challenges. I initially started with mainly Christmas challenges to take the pressure off at the end of the year but have since found several others that have appealed to me. Since I live on the other side of the world, so many of the challenges are the opposite season to ours which certainly makes things interesting!

I am so looking forward to this new phase of CHNC challenge extra. Please give these ladies a warm welcome.

Meanwhile, the December challenge continues here - please click on the link or scroll down to see it and join in with your entries. There are already well over 500 entries .... please keep them coming!

Follow up to Design Team Call

Please scroll down for the December challenge or click here.

I was absolutely taken aback by the number of lovely crafters applying to be on my Design Team. I never expected so many entries - and, yes, I did also take into account the couple of emails I had as well as those who linked.

I originally said that I was looking for two or three folk to join me, not expecting that many would apply. There were so many entries for November that it had me thinking that I should try to have a larger team - at least we could share the commenting!

It was a really hard decision as to who to invite to join me. To make it fair I looked through the earlier months of the year to see how many of those applying had been sharing their cards then. I'm inviting 7 people who applied to be on the team who have submitted entries for the challenges every month.

I realise that some of you have been regular players since you discovered the blog and I am so grateful for your support and interest and I hope you will continue to share your festive makes and not be too disappointed at my decision.

I will continue to invite guest designers to join us for a specific month - I already have people lined up for January, February and March.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who shares their festive creations here, whether now and again or regularly - I love seeing all your wonderful inspirations.

By the end of this month, this challenge blog will have been running for a year and I hope that next year it continues to be a success, thanks to all of you.

Please scroll down for the December challenge or click here.

CHNC challenge extra for December

Please click here to see the winner of CHNC challenge extra for November.

This challenge will last for the whole month of December - anything goes as long as it's Christmas - it doesn't have to be a card, you can link any project as long as it's Christmas!

There are just more and more lovely crafters adding their Christmas cards - there were 805 entries during November, a record number - thank you, everyone, for making this challenge blog such a success and a lovely place to share festive crafting. 

Christmas will come and go during this month, so this is an opportunity to share all those last minute cards ... and perhaps continuing making cards after the Big Day to start getting ahead for next year.

All of these monthly challenges are being generously sponsored by Bugaboo Stamps - a winner will be randomly chosen using random.

Bugaboo Stamps are proud to sponsor this challenge - they are offering $21 of digital stamps to the randomly selected winner.

Everything That You Ever Wanted to Know About Bugaboo Stamps: A Short Essay

As if raising five children in the frozen land of the North was not enough of a challenge, Jodie Mackrell decided to dip her cold little Canadian toes into the world of papercrafting by opening an online store full of her illustrations. That was two years ago. Today Bugaboo Stamps is one of the leading companies in digital images, and we're still growing!  From seriously snarky to sugary sweet to sublimely soulful all the way over to the other side of the super sexy spectrum, you're bound to find all that you need and more to create your paper projects.  Jodie works very hard to provide New Releases and Freebies every week! 

 If your taste runs to rubber (and you know who you are), you can find Bugaboo Stamps   at Totally Stampalicious. And finally, join the Bugaboo Stamps DT   for weekly challenges at Catch the Bug. 

Every month I am joined by a Guest Designer and for November I am pleased to welcome Kathy Barrett

Kathy writes:

'My name is Kathy Barrett and I currently live in a rural area of Arkansas with my husband and our 3 schnauzers.  Sadie, our oldest at 16, is in the photo with me.  I am a medical researcher by day and addicted stamper by night.  I was introduced to stamping in 2007 by a Kindergarten teacher, for whom I was a Renaissance Reader for 11 years.  I started out slowly, until I introduced my friend Margaret to stamping.  From there, we both became addicted and we have never looked back.  Last year I finally got brave enough to start a blog.  Outside of stamping and blogging, I enjoy doing dog agility with my youngest Schnauzer, Geena Bea.  I also volunteer with an animal rescue as donation coordinator, database manager and Foster Failure (we have adopted all our fosters!).  Stamping has become handy in that I make special cards for children who donate to our rescue and donors can purchase cards in honor/memory of someone or a pet.  I am thrilled to have the opportunity to guest design at Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge!'

For her lovely easel card, Kathy has used 'candy cane bear' by Bugaboo Stamps - you can read about it here on Kathy's blog:

Thank you,  Kathy, for being my guest for this month. Please go over to Kathy's blog and leave her some comments.

This is my card for CHNC challenge 153: light it up- now closed - more about the card here:

And a card I've made for The Glory of Christmas 21: turquoise and brown - this challenge is now closed - you can read more about it here:

And this is my card for CHNC challenge 154 - open for entries until 22:00 UK time Friday 13 December - more info here:. This card is also for the Sweet Pea Stampers challenge: it's cold outside':

And this is my card for The Glory of Christmas 22: snow - you can read more about it here - that challenge is open until 23:55 on 21 December:

If you have any entries that would fit any of these challenges, we would love to see them there.

You may add any Christmas card or project to this challenge

it's 'anything goes' every month

There really aren't any rules as such - just have a look at what I've written on the right hand sidebar and join in! You may link as many entries as you like as long as they weren't blogged before 1 December 2013.

Weekly challenges will continue on my CHNC challenge blog - these usually have a theme - but any card that you enter there can be entered here as well, so you increase your chance of winning a prize. 

And, of course, you can chat about this monthly challenge extra blog on the CHNC facebook page as well - if you haven't joined that yet, please follow the link and 'like' the page.

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 card can be found) by 20:00 UK time Tuesday 31 December.  Please mention my blog and create a link within the post for your creation. The winner will be announced at 23:00 UK  time on 31 December.  January's challenge will begin at midnight on 1 January, when I hope to have my new Design Team in place.

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.

Thank you for your support

I look forward to seeing your entries

This challenge will last for the whole month of December - anything goes as long as it's Christmas