A New Home for Papercraft Challenges!

I wanted to let you know we have a new home for our weekly papercraft challenges.

From tomorrow (Wednesday 4th June) onwards, we're meeting up over on a dedicated challenge blog at Handmade Harbour Challenges and I would be delighted if you could join us.

In case you wanted a little heads up, our first theme will be pretty.  It's a theme which most papercraft projects would fit into...if you think yours does, then feel free to link up with us tomorrow.  There are prizes every week.

If your projects include digital stamps and you use something other than paper for your creative makes, you are more than welcome to join in - I love to see digis being used in creative ways!

Josie's pretty pencil case uses vintage caravan digital stamp for the applique

Midweek Papercraft Party (39)

Welcome to another papercraft challenge.  From next week, we'll be hosting these challenges on a dedicated challenge blog - but I'll link from here so nobody gets lost!  I'll let you know more soon!

Before we get talking about this week, here are last week's winners:

Sarah and Eemeli

(I loved the heartwarming story that Sarah told about her card - the card itself is worthy of winning, but the story just clinched it! And Eemeli's card really made me smile!)

Sarah and Eemeli, you both win 3 digistamps of your choice from Handmade Harbour - please email your choices to me wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk and I'll send them to you as soon as I can.

This week's theme is sweet or sparkly!  You can interpret that any way you like... sweet could be cakes, sugary treats - or something cute and gorgeous.  And sparkles can come in any format!

Teresa used the pair of foxes stamp to make a super sweet card - I love this!

Josie used the Tea and Cake digi to cleverly create a cupcake keyring - definitely very sweet!

And look at what Elina made - she flipped the teddies hugging image to make this adorably sweet card!

I love Emma's card too -gorgeous use of colour! - this image is so new, it's not on the website yet, but I'm hoping to rectify that later today!  You'll find it on the new digital stamps page.

Last but not least, Frezja made a super sweet party card with the girls celebrating digistamp- with the words sweet time! 

Later in the week, there will be some information about our new challenge blog - do pop back to find out more!  In the meantime, if you'd like to join in this week and be in with  chance of winning three Handmade Harbour digital stamps of your choice, you know what to do...

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (38)

Welcome to this week's challenge.  Our theme is smile or laugh!

Last week's winners are:

Chrissy and Chris 

Well done!  You both win three digital stamps of your choice from the Handmade Harbour store.  Please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choices and I'll email them to you as soon as I can.

Moving onto this week,  we have are some gorgeous cards - and more - to show you!

Teresa used two digital stamps to make this card - the vintage camera and girl with bunting.  I love what you did here Teresa!

Rachel  made a really pretty card from the sixty is the new digital stamp.  Forgetful friends with episodes of senior moments?  At least you can both laugh about it with this image on a sixtieth birthday card!

Josie came up trumps again with another delightful and beautifully-made raw edge applique design using digital stamps for the image - this time she used a Christmassy digital stamp and discarded the seasonal elements!  I love how easy that is with digital stamps.  The result is this super pretty heart with a little owl, which would make a gorgeous gift.

Elina made a super sweet thank you card for her child's teacher.  I love this card Elina! The colours work beautifully. The image Elina used is girl with thank you note.

Last but not least, I'm editing this post to add Emma's adorable card... such gorgeous use of colour in this one too.  It certainly fits the smile theme - you couldn't help but smile if you received this card!

So, what have you made that might make someone smile or laugh?  We'd love to visit you and have a look, so please leave your blog link to join in.  Each week we choose two winners to each receive three digital stamps as their prize - a great way of starting or building up your digital stash!

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (37)

Welcome to this week's papercraft challenge!  Our theme is having fun - and I think the design team have had fun while creating the having fun projects! It certainly looks that way - they've come up with some fabulous creations!

Before we move onto having fun, here are the winners from last week:

Leona and Monica

Well done! You both win three digital stamps of your choice from the Handmade Harbour store.  Please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choices and I'll get them to you as soon as I can.

Back to this week...

I love seeing how different people interpret the themes each week.  Teresa made this gorgeous card with toddler Emily feeding the chickens digi.  This image is based on a real-life Emily, who loves feeding my chickens - this definitely fits the having fun theme for me!

One of the great things about digis is how you can alter the image - and here, Teresa created a whole brood of extra chickens!

Josie used the butterflies and hearts stamp to create a gorgeous linen pouch with applique butterflies - definitely brings to mind summer fun!

Emma used the girls celebrating stamp to make this gorgously girly card - and these girls definitely look like they're having fun, don't you think?

So much fun that Elina used the same girls on her card.  Elina created the background with Tim Holtz faded jeans distress ink and added drops of water - really effective and gives the impression of flashing lights in the background.   I love it!

Frezja made a journal page with the pair of foxes stamp - I love how she dressed this pair and added the wording fur can be elegant.  It certainly can - on foxes, it's definitely elegant.  They may cause a nuisance at times but they are beautiful creatures.

Are you inspired?  Have you been having fun with cardmaking, stamping or papercrafting?  If you think it fits the having fun theme (perhaps you had fun making it!) please feel free to join us this week!

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (35)

Welcome to another papercraft challenge!  This week's theme is Happy Days!

Last week's winners are

Donna and Jennyfer

Well done! You both win three digistamps of your choice from the Handmade Harbour shop.  Please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choices and I'll get them to you as soon as possible.  You also get to grab the winner's badge for your blog, which you'll find in the left hand sidebar if you scroll down a little.

Moving on to the design team creations with our Happy Days theme, I love how Teresa cleverly combined two stamps to create this cat with a candy floss (cotton candy) stall.  It conjures up summery, fun days in my head - definitely meets the happy days brief!

The candy floss cart digi is one of my favourites and I love seeing it all beautifully coloured here (I really like how Teresa created the 3D effect on the canopy with colour).  Paired with the cat digital stamp, it creates quite special card.

Oh, now here we have a card after my own heart!  I have quite a thing for seaside beach huts and this card just speaks to me of happy days - summer at the seaside!  The beach hut digital stamp is just a simple, single beach hut with a little note on the door (life's a beach) - but look how a bit of background and some fabulous colour can really bring it to life!

Elina used a homemade embossing paste for the sand - very effective, I think.  I love it.

Emma at the Sparkly Fairy created something quite simple but very special.  I love how just a touch of colour (and maybe glitter, too) on a digital stamp creates a wonderful image - a purrfect card! 

This might be a papercraft challenge, but we can't leave out fabric creations using digital stamps (digis are perfect for applique designs, especially raw-edge techniques with free machine embroidery).  This adorable notebook cover was created by Josie using the elephant and bird digital stamp. What a superb gift this makes!

Josie combined it with a tiny scrap of elephant fabric from her stash - the perfect finishing touch!

I hope you find something from this post to inspire you this week - whether it's one of the design team's designs or the theme, or colours... whatever, it's always good to find inspiration!

If you'd like to join in our challenge this week, it's easy.  Please add your link below so we can visit you.  We're looking forward to seeing your creations!

PS: Handmade Harbour has a brand new Facebook group!  Please follow the link if you'd like to join us on Facebook!

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (34)

Hello and welcome to the latest papercraft party!  Sorry I'm late this week - I can't blame anything except chaos from magazine deadlines and Easter getting in the way.  Still, it was nice to have a break, even if it did create a backlog of work!

Our theme for this week is birthday or best wishes but before we get to that, let's announce last week's winners...

Carol and Lori

Congrats, ladies - could you please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choice of 3 images - thanks so much for taking part, it's always appreciated and it's always great to see what you've made!

It's always great to see what the design team has been making too!  Here we go...we have a slightly depleted team this week, but hopefully we'll be back up to speed by next week!

Lynne made this lovely card, using the new girls celebrating digital stamp - perfect for a birthday!

Lynne didn't stop there though and made another!  I love all the sparkle in these - it really adds to that party atmosphere!

Rachel made this beautiful birthday card for a thirtieth.  The cat and chicken digistamp was originally designed for my niece's 30th birthday, but I thought it might be worth sharing!

If you've been making cards for birthdays or just sending some best wishes, we'd love to see them!  Feel free to join in with the papercraft party this week... 

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (29)

It's time for another papercraft challenge!  This week's theme is:

Spring - flowers, rabbits or birds!

Before we get down to this week's makes, let's announce last week's winners:

Carol and Suzette

Well done both!  You get three digital stamps of your choice from Handmade Harbour - please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choices.

The design team has made some fabulous things - and this week I absolutely love how diverse their projects are.  Spring has definitely brought out some real creativity here at Handmade Harbour!

Elina used two of our new Easter themed digital stamps for her gorgeous shadow box...

Wouldn't this be just perfect on a child's bedroom wall?  I love how you can create adorable wall art so easily with digital stamps and an injection of creativity.  It's a lot of fun too - Elina says she had a blast creating this (which I think shows in the finished item - it's such a gorgeous finished piece).  

Superb as it is on its own, I'd love to see this as part of a Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall), Winter collection!

Teresa made a really pretty, super-cute spring card using the cute little chick just emerging from his egg. The pink lattice she used is from the new Strawberry Picnic craft paper pack - it works really well as a background here.

Josie made a pencil case using the vintage caravan digital stamp.  Isn't this just adorable in fabric?  Josie says: "Spring weather really brings out the wanderlust and what better way to explore than in a pretty vintage caravan!  The theme included the tag 'birds' and if you look closely you can see the little chap perched on the TV aerial!"

Frezja made some arorably bunny bookmarks!  How cute are these?  She took the head from this bunny digital stamp for her bookmarks - I love how there is a Mr and a Mrs Rabbit!  This project also demonstrates how you can alter a digital stamp.

I love what  Emma did with paper piecing and the flowers on the hill digi  - it's a super effective and fun technique (it's just like fabric applique in paper form).

If you are feeling the Spring theme (and I'm sorry if it's not spring in your part of the world but here the birds are singing and the sun is shining - although it's still a little chilly - so perhaps we can share it with you via the internet!) then please do join in our challenge this week.  Remember that anything with flowers, rabbits or birds is part of the challenge - as is anything that makes you think of Spring!

We're looking forward to seeing what you make!

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (28)

Welcome to this week's papercraft challenge - the theme is Lots of Love.

Before we peek at what the design team has been making, I want to announce last week's winners:

Hazel and Katie

Yay! Both of you win 3 digistamps of your choice from the Handmade Harbour store.  Please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choices.  You also get to grab the winner's badge for your blog - you'll find it in the left hand sidebar (you may have to scroll down a little).

Back to this week's cards and the Lots of Love challenge theme...

Look at the super cute card Aleksandra made... just adorable!  The cute bunny digital stamp she used is one of the new releases (perfect for Easter and spring-themed cards).

Lynne made this gorgeous card with a heartwarming quote about family love... this owl and baby digital stamp is already proving popular - it's a great one for Mother's Day!

Rachel's pretty pastel pink card uses the new Do What You Love digital stamp - I love that lovely hand-knitted embellishment!

If you'd like to join in this week, it's simple - just leave a link to your blog post by clicking below.  We'd love to see what you've been making and you could become next week's winner!

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (25)

Hello and welcome to another papercraft challenge!  This week's theme is

Put some Ribbon on it!

Your make can be anything you like: a card, tag, scrapbook page or even something else entirely.  But we'd like to see some ribbon on it this week!

Last week's winners are...

Sue and Ginger


Well done both!  You win three digistamps of your choice from the Handmade Harbour shop.  Please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choices and I'll get them to you as soon as I can!

This week we have some fabulous new members on our design team, and these are their first assignments - and rather lovely they all are too!  You can find out more about them all on the design team page.

Emma made this gorgous card in pastel colours using the campervan digital stamp.  I love how the ribbons are holding up the stamped bunting!

Teresa used the thank you topiary digital stamp to create this bright and happy card ... or is it a canvas?  I can't quite tell from the photo - it looks like it might have some depth to it - but whatever the finished product is, I do love it!

Josie came up with something completely different!  This needlecase is made using the bird and nest digital stamp - Josie used the stamp as a pattern for applique.  I just adore this!  OK, so it's not papercraft, but I do love how edges can be blurred and one craft can transfer to another.

Frezja made this adorable journal page - how gorgeous has she made the momma and baby owls look?  That little one is so sweet with the ribbon in her hair!

and a close up!

Last but definitely not least, Elina created this oh-so-pretty card which would make a gorgeous birthday card for a special little girl.  She used Toddler Emily birthday Princess digital stamp for this.

If you want to join in and play along with our challenge this week, all you have to do is put some ribbon on it!  If you use a Handmade Harbour digital stamp, you increase your chances of winning  (there are some free digital stamps you can use).

We'd love to see what you've made!  To join in...

An InLinkz Link-up

Midweek Papercraft Party (22)

Welcome to another papercraft challenge!  This week's theme is

Hearts and/or Flowers 

You can see where we are going with this, can't you?  It's a perfect theme for those Valentine's cards, but maybe some other projects could make it in, too...

Without any further ado, last week's winners are:

Teresa and Tamie

Well done! Both winners get to choose three digital stamps from Handmade Harbour.  Please email me with your choices, ladies!  A very special mention to Teresa, whose card used not just one but two Handmade Harbour digis and is just super cute (click her name above to see it).  Teresa, you have probably won too many of these challenges now but I  just couldn't resist picking you again this week!!

Let's have a peek at what the design team has been making...

Lynne has made a batch of cards with the heart theme.  In fact they are all from this hearts within a heart digital stamp.  In fact, all the cards the design team has made this week use the same digital stamp!  I love it when that happens (it wasn't planned that way!) because I love seeing the variety of creativity that can come from one single image.

LYNNE'S favourite - because of the Crackle Medium she used on the hearts!

Zoe used the same image (below) and made a very different but equally beautiful card...  I love the subdued colours and of course the buttons.  I'm a sucker for buttons as a decorative touch.

Rachel's card (below) has hearts and flowers in abundance - you can't mistake the message here!  She also added the do what you love digi to create a very pretty, shimmery and blingy hearts-and-flowers card.

A quick reminder: if you'd like to be part of our design team, there is an opening right now!  There is more information about the design team call here!

Are you inspired by our hearts and flowers theme?  Have you been creating cards or other projects that might fit in nicely?  If so, we'd love to have you join in our challenge.  Two winners every week get three free digi stamps of their choice from the Handmade Harbour store. 

If you are joining in...

Midweek Papercraft Party (21)

Welcome to another papercraft challenge.  Last week was a disappointing turnout - let's see if we can do better this week!  We had only two entrants, so they both get a prize!  To be fair, they are both deserving of a prize as their work is just superb.

Carol and Teresa both made gorgeous cards for the challenge and both win three digistamps of their choice from Handmade Harbour.  Carol and Teresa, please email me for your choice of images - wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk

Our theme this week is SMILE!  You can interpret this any way you choose.  It could be an image of someone smiling, something that makes you smile - or it could even be the sentiment.  The first two images from the design team use the vintage camera digital stamp which I guess is an obvious choice this week!

Kel's card makes a great birthday card... and definitely has that vintage vibe!  I love it!

and this card by Laura could be for any occasion.  It's a double embossed card - just gorgeous!  It's also looking very vintage!

Connie at TimesTo Cherish used the butterflies digital stamp for embellishing her gorgeous layout.  I love the way this works - so pretty!  And I think those are little beads or gems on the butterfly's body.  Just lovely.

And now it's your turn.  It would be great to have you join in.  I'm not sure what makes the difference to a challenge you want to join and one you don't, so if you have any insights please share them with me!

Meanwhile, I am looking forward to seeing what you made, so if you feel like a challenge this week...

Midweek Papercraft Party (18)

Hello!  Welcome to the last papercraft party before Christmas!  Our theme is snow, but we'd welcome other weather themes - and of course Christmas themes!

Last week's winners are:

Ria and Stacey

Well done both!  If you would like to email me at wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk  with your choice of three digistamps from the Handmade Harbour store, I'll send them over to you.  Please also feel free to grab the winner's badge from the left hand sidebar <---

This week there are just a couple of images to show you from the design team.  I think everyone else is busy with Christmas stuff!

Lynne made this gorgeous card with a snowman family taking centre stage.  I'm delighted to say that even though Lynne lives in Canada and I live in the UK, I've seen this card in real life - Lynne very kindly sent it to me as my Christmas card!  I was thrilled, and it's even more gorgeous in real life.  Thank you Lynne!

Rachel used the same snowman family for her card, too (I love how Rachel gets creative with her card shapes - they never seem to be rectangular!).

 This snowman family digistamp has been a popular one!

So, in the run up to Christmas, have you been making cards or other papercraft projects?  Are they Christmas themed or snow themed?  We'd love to see!  I'll leave this linky open a little longer than usual over the Christmas period, just in case you want a distraction from the festivities!