Merry Christmas from all of us at Use Your Stuff!

Merry Christmas from all of us at Use Your Stuff to you and your families.  We hope that you enjoy the holidays, and can't wait for all of you to join us in the new year!

The Design Team will be taking some time off to spend with their families and friends during the festive season.  We will be back on January 8th for our first challenge of 2018!  So for now, feel free to add whatever you are working on right now so that we can have a look.  We will draw a random entry winner on January 7th to win a fun surprise!

Some of the design team have shared some projects that they are working on right now!

Stephanie

For my daughter, constructing gingerbread houses while squirting icing in her mouth equals the most wonderful time of the year for her.

Gail

Here's a Christmas ornament I made. You can see the back on my blog. 

Karrie

Christmas cards for kids! Inside is a Merry Christmas message they can color.

1st set is "Free Naughty Pass" theme for boys 8&10



2nd set is pretty for the 2 youngest and the oldest girl.

Merry Christmas everyone!

An InLinkz Link-up

Highlights Challenge #293

Thank you to everyone who played along this week! 

There were so many lovely entries! 

There will be a lot of very happy people when they receive all of 

your beautiful cards! Here are a few entries that stood out!

Amelia B

Jacki D

Sanja

Thanks again to everyone who played along! Don't forget to grab your badge!

Merry Christmas and best wishes for a wonderful New Year! 

HIGHLIGHTS #292: CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Thank you for all the participation in this week's challenge!  I love everything Christmas; the colors, music, the traditions...As a result, I loved looking at each and every entry submitted last week.  The talent of everyone who participate in this blog is inspiring.  Below are a few of my favorites from this week's submissions...

Sanja Grdinic

I love Sanja's elf image.  The colors are perfect and the swatches of paper, ribbon, and jingle bell are the ideal accents to add that Christmas feeling.  

SewPaperPaint

The rustic feel of this reindeer card reminded me of an old fashioned Christmas scene.  Not to mention, I love the natural feel of this card with the sprig of evergreen. 

 Maikreations

This card contains so many fun elements.  The embossing, glitter, and shading truly give this card a North Pole feel.  However, what caught my eye is the penguin actually sled riding down the hill.  This little guy moves when you open the card.  What a clever idea!

Once again, thank you to all who participated in the "Christmas is Coming" Challenge.  One of the greatest parts of being a member of the crafting world is seeing gorgeous projects created from talented paper artists.  I'm always grateful for all the inspiration I get looking at all of your stunning creations.  I wish all our followers here at Use Your Stuff a  Happy Holiday season, and look forward to seeing your work next year!

Stephanie Johnson

Use Your Stuff #293 - Holiday Stamp

ReneeAmanda here! For this week's challenge I'd love to see your holiday stamps! Of course I'm thinking Christmas as the season is here but you can use any sort of holiday stamp on any sort of project!

For mine I used this deer stamp I got in the Christmas clearance section a few years ago
- it is one of my favourites!

Take a look at what the rest of the team created!

Gail

Tina

Lori

Renee

My favorite way to use any stamping is to combine it with my other 2 loves of coloring and planning.  I used an old gingerbread man stamp in my planner to cover a spot that was dirty from removing a sticker previously.

An InLinkz Link-up

UYS #292: CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Welcome to another challenge here at Use Your Stuff.  Team A's theme for this week is "Christmas is Coming."  In other words, create a project with Christmas as your inspiration.  This could be a scrapbook page, a greeting card, a tag for a special present; the possibilities are endless!  We can't wait to see your creations!

STEPHANIE

During my daughter's first Christmas season, she was cutting teeth.  She had her two incisors and two bottom teeth, but her two front teeth were nowhere to be found...I loved her toothy grin and decided this picture of her on Christmas day using the lyrics from the famous Christmas song "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" would be the perfect project for this challenge.

MAJO

Chris

  I dug pretty deep into my stash for some of the elements on my layout.  I used non-traditional papers and traditional accents.  I stenciled the red paper with white stars to coordinate with the stars on my background paper.  I even dug deep into my pre-printed photos and used two from Christmas 2007. 

Amanda

I made this Christmas card for a friend I met through scrapbooking who has a pet pig!

Karrie

If Christmas is coming, Santa is coming!

 

Gail

Tina

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Highlights #291 - Woodgrain

Thanks for playing along with my woodgrain challenge during this busy time of the year.  I loved them all but since I can only choose three....

My favourites are (in no particular order):

From Marina this cute little guy carrying a pile of wood:



From Cheiro Urgia, this stunning altered wooden donation box.  I'm sure her church is in love with it!



And lastly from stempelomi, this simple but very elegant card.



Stayed tuned tomorrow for another cool challenge.

UYS #291 - Woodgrain

Hello all! Gail here. This week's challenge is all about woodgrain.  You can use paper, wooden pieces or woodgrain embossing folders.

The card I made has woodgrain background paper and wooden hearts. There's even a wooded area behind the train.

Lori

I have used woodgrain patterned paper for the background of my card.

Renee

For this challenge, I drew a sign and used my Copic Markers to hand draw the wood grain on the sign.

An InLinkz Link-up

Highlights Challenge #290

Wow, amazing projects from you all, this made it so hard for me to make a choice, but it needed to be done.

My highlight this week is the the card made by Donna, it's so very elegant!

My second choice is the polar bear from Marina, it's so super cute and I love the embossing!

.... and last but not least I think that Linda's card has so many details, it just has to mentioned!

Thanks so much ladies for joining my challenge, I hope to see you all again next week for another challenge by one of my team mates.

You all  have a good Sunday now and as always:

HAPPY CRAFTING ♥

UYS #290 - Heat Embossing!

Hi Peeps,

it's my turn to challenge you this week.

I'd love to see some heat embossing on your creations, preferably in GOLD. It's just the time of the year where the golden embossing fits so well, don't you think?

I created a Christmas Card using the Darkroom Door text stamp and the bauble from the "Brushed Christmas Vol 2" set. It's my most versatile set for Christmas Cards.

 

More details on my blog ♥

Take a look at all the neat creations my team mates have come up with!

Stephanie

-I love embossed projects, but I don't have the supplies needed to heat emboss.  As a result, I did my own version of heat embossing...pre-made embossed items!  The background paper of my project is embossed in an arabesque lantern pattern while I used gold flecked accents throughout the project.

Gail

A Christmas card with the sentiment embossed in gold.

Chris

This was a great challenge for me to dig out the Elle's Studio Title Builder Stamps I bought a few weeks ago. I stamped my title "Enjoying our Love" and then heat embossed in gold.

Karrie

I embossed my white chipboard word and 3 fish

with 3 different Lindy's shimmery powders.

An InLinkz Link-up

UYS #289 - Thankful

Hello!  Heather R here...I suppose it is a little cliche, but given that it is close to Thanksgiving here in the US, it only seems fitting to have a challenge centered around what we might be thankful for in our lives.  It can be something as simple as that morning cup of coffee, a good book, or the sweetest of hugs from a child.  The focus of my layout is also a little on the cliche side, but I am so thankful for my family, especially my 3 kids.  I am also grateful that my oldest will be home from college this Tuesday to spend the holiday with us.

Hope you will share your Thankful projects with us this week!

Gail

Thanksgiving here in Canada was back in October.

I'm thankful for my many friends in the U.S. Here's a card I'm sending to one of those friends.

Lori

One of the many things that I am thankful for is my good friends. This card is on it's way to one of those friends to let them know just how much I appreciate them.

Amy. L

I have created this sweet little layout to show 2 people I am grateful for, my babies- Hunter and Hannah. They are greatest achievement and I am thankful they are mine. Here is a recent photo of the 2 of them stealing a sleep over in my bed when my partner was away. 

Stay tuned for a process video later in the week. 

Renee

I am thankful for relationships, particularly the 57 years long relationship of my parents.  This image from Art Impressions reminds me of the longevity of their marriage.

Amanda

Always thankful for my little ones!

An InLinkz Link-up

Highlights for #288 - 5+ patterned papers

Not many entries this time around though I thought it was an easy one! So extra "Thanks!!" to everyone that did join in last week's challenge. We hope you had fun digging through and using up your stuff!

In no particular order, here is some work that stood out this time around:

1. Deanna Deaton - perfectly coordinated!



2. Jane Willis  - lovely Christmas choices


 5. Theresa P - adorable use of scraps

Tune in tomorrow for our new challenge!

UYS # 288 - 5 + patterned papers

hello all!  

 Karrie  challenging you to use up your stuff!!  Yeah that's what we' re always all about here, so this time dig into your patterned papers because we want to see you use 5 or more on your project!

I've got 7 going on here, it's easy when you use the same colour scheme.

My talented team mates have been digging into their stash too!

Gail

Simple masculine birthday card.

Stephanie

My daughter loves every holiday from October to December, so she decided to decorate using everything from snowmen to skeletons.  She looked at me and said, "Happy Hallowthanksmas, Mom!"  I used 10 pieces of Halloween, fall, and Christmas paper to pull this project together.

Majo

Well, I'm not into patterned paper too much, I rather color my own, but I found some very old paper from Teresa Collins in my stash.

I used it for my Christmas Tag, also using the Paper Dolls from Tim Holtz and a sentiment from Waltzing Mouse stamps (Unfortunately retired 😞)

Amanda
On this one I used some old patterned paper I have been hoarding! The 5th one is hard to tell but the black paper the photo is mounted on has some pre-printed embossing on it.

Chris
I used lots of older stash for my circles, matting and even the tag was fussy cut from a piece of patterned paper.

Tina
5 pattern papers for the layout some old stash and some newer stash too

Lots of different things can be done to mix and match patterned papers as you can see, any kind of project accepted, so go ahead and show us!  Inlinkz below:

An InLinkz Link-up