FINAL CHALLENGE OF 2013!

Welcome back Festive Friday fans!

We can't believe it, but the time has already come to launch our final challenge for 2013! It seems like just yesterday we were announcing a new kid on the challenge block, and that we were making our team introductions to you, and here we are, closing in on the Holidays! 21 challenges later, and we are ecstatic to see that our players are all celebrating their stash of cards, enjoying the lack of stress to get them made and mailed. Our goal at Festive Friday is to help you stay on top of your Christmas cards so you can relax and enjoy the season, rather than one more thing to tackle on the already demanding list of to-dos... and we're thrilled that so many of you are reaping the rewards!

Since it's our last challenge, we want to go out with a bang before taking a break until the New Year... so we're offering up some prizes! There are two prizes up for grabs:

PRIZE #1

For one of our faithful players, we are offering up a Grand Prize of a $60 gift card to your favourite online shop! You must have participated in at least 15 of our 20 previous challenges to qualify for this prize - we had so many regular and devoted players, we really wanted to extend our gratitude to you!

PRIZE #2

For all of the players of this final challenge, we are offering a Top Prize of a $20 gift card to your favourite online shop! Anyone who participates in the final challenge is qualified to win the prize!

This time around we're doing things a bit differently - instead of posing a challenge to you, we're asking you to pick your favourite challenge from the past year, and create something new! That's the only rule; you must upload a *new* project! You can find the graphics from all of the challenges under the tab at the top of the page!

Each of the Design Team ladies has created something with their favourite challenge from the year, and we'll just run this post for 2 weeks (no mid-week inspiration this time), so it's easy for you to enter as many times as you like!

Sadly, this is Amber's last post with us... she's been on hiatus for the past few months, as she took a break from blogging, but she's back to say farewell with one last challenge. She won't be back with us in the New Year, and we'll miss her, but it's so exciting to see the path she's taking!

Here are our favourite challenges from this year:

Amber:

Ardyth:

Ardyth also combined the Kid's Theme, and Merry Trigger challenges on her card!

Geri:

Geri also included inspiration from our Bird Element Challenge and the Star Element Challenge as well!

Melissa:

Sarah:

Meredith:

Now that you've seen our favourites, we want to see yours! Link up your NEW project, and be sure to include the graphic so that we know what challenge you loved! You can combine our challenge with your other favourite challenges, and enter as many times as you like. This challenge will run until December 4, 2013 at 11:55PST. 

FFC16 - Week 2 Inspiration (and FFC15 WINNERS!)

Welcome to week 2 of our current challenge! This is a full post, since I owe you some shout outs and winners from last week, so settle in!

First, since we are a week into our challenge, I have some new inspiration for you. Here's a refresher of our current challenge:

And here we have some new projects from a couple of our designers for you:

Ardyth

Geri

Meredith

Remember, you have until Wednesday to link up your projects over on this post!

Now, if you can remember back to our last challenge, we owe you some winners from the Children's Theme entries!

I apologize for being late - it's been hectic this week as my little one starts Kindergarten, and we are tackling the exterior painting and repairs of our house all at the same time. Forgive me!

Without further delay, here you go!

SHOUT OUTS

We had it on good authority (Ardyth's daughter!) that Anne's card was definitely a winner in the little ones' eyes... 

Just for the sheer effort alone, we had to include Elena's adorable tag set - not to mention the fact that it was a non-card project!

The sweet inspiration for this card was the main reason we loved Jill's card, although we're pretty sure the image would go over well with the younger set.

WINNER

It's the details in Barbara's card that made it for us - the graphic Santa, a favourite of all children, of course, the fun font in her sentiment, and the whimsical patterns and bow all came together to create a FUN card.

Congratulations ladies! Please email Meredith at delightfulwaste@gmail.com for your blog badges!

FFC16 - Trigger Challenge...

Okay, this is officially the umpteenth attempt to get this post up!! Cross your fingers, people...

We are ushering in a new challenge this week, and this time it's a Trigger!

Remember, you're not obligated to actually use the trigger word itself - just be inspired by it! Of course, many times, the word ends up on many designs, and that's okay too!

Here is what our Design Team came up with for you:

Ardyth

Geri

Melissa

Meredith

And this week, we are so lucky to be joined by the incredibly talented JJ Bolton of Ribbon Girls!

Hi all:)  My name is JJ Bolton.  I'm originally from Hawaii but now live in northern Virginia with my husband and twin teenage boys.  By day, I'm a science geek, but in my spare time, I love playing around with paper, dies, and stamps.  My favorite part of paper crafting is trying new things with my collection of dies and my digital cutter.  I absolutely love the winter holidays and I'm so excited to be playing along with Meredith and the Festive Friday crew!  Thanks so much for having me!

And here is JJ's beautiful creation for this week's challenge:

Now that you've seen what we did with the challenge, it's your turn! Create any holiday themed project based on the trigger, and link us up below! You can combine our challenge with your other favourite challenges, and enter as many times as you like. This challenge will run until September 11, 2013 at 11:55PST. 

FFC12 - Week 2 Inspiration...

Welcome back to the second week of our current Trigger challenge! This has clearly been a popular one, as we are seeing record numbers of players in the gallery! Of course, that could have something to do with the prizes being offered!

Here is another look at the current challenge:

Photo Source

And here is some new inspiration from some of our design team:

Ardyth

Geri

Meredith

Remember, you still have lots of time to play along, and like I said - there are prizes this week! Click here to learn all the details and link up your project!

FFC12 - Trigger Challenge...

Hello Festive Friday players!

It's already time for a new challenge, can you believe it? The year is flying by, and we've officially hit (passed, in fact) the halfway mark to Christmas. Don't you love the feeling of having a stash prepared already?

Since it's the halfway mark, we wanted to talk prizes... do you mind? *wink*

If you've been playing for awhile, you might already be aware that we are, in fact, playing for a Grand Prize. We mentioned earlier in the year that it was important that you keep track of the projects you've created throughout the year, so that you can qualify for our Grand Prize - a $60 gift certificate to an online retailer*! We will ask to see these projects, as in order to qualify for this one, you'll need to have played with the majority of our challenges. We will draw a random winner from the final challenge - more details to come!

Here's some fun news... we are loving all of the enthusiasm, and so are excited to see everyone building their Christmas card stash, so we decided to offer *another* prize! This one will also be a random draw, for a $20 gift certificate to an online retailer*, and the great part is, if you didn't manage to play as much as you might have liked, or you didn't find us before now, you can still qualify!

How does all that sound?

Alright, let's get to this week's challenge.

It's time for a Trigger Challenge, which means we want to see how this particular word jumps your creativity.  You don't have to use the actual word in your project, you just have to share how it inspired you!

Photo Source

And here are the amazing creations from our Design Team members this week:

Ardyth

Geri

Melissa

Meredith

This week, we're excited to be joined by the talented Veronica Zalis from So Many Stamps, So Little Time.

My name is Veronica Zalis and I am getting ready to move to Benton, Ark. I am a stay-at-home mom of two beautiful little boys. I have been married to my best friend and biggest cheerleader for almost 10 years. I was invited to a neighborhood card swap in Texas in 2003, and I have been a cardmaker ever since. I have been published in print magazines over 75 times. I have made many wonderful crafty friends along the way and look forward to making many more!

Here is Veronica's *beautiful* card:

Now that you've seen what we did with the challenge, it's your turn! Create any holiday themed project based on the 'snow' trigger and link us up below! You can combine our challenge with your other favourite challenges, and enter as many times as you like. This challenge will run until July 17, 2013 at 11:55PST. 

Oh, one more thing... since we're talking prizes this week, why not offer one up? Geri has so generously offered not one, not two, but THREE giveaways for our players this week!

Three lucky players, drawn randomly from this challenge will each win a little packet of these adorable little houses from Prima! You'll notice Geri altered and used one on her beautiful card above!

Good luck!

FFC08 - Week 2 Inspiration...

Here we are again at the midway point of our current challenge. We have loved seeing your interpretations of "Sweet" this past week... it's fun that you can really do whatever you like with these trigger challenges! So, of course, we have some favourites from the gallery to share, and as a reminder, here is this week's graphic:

So we wanted to see what this week's trigger inspired you to create, and we had nothing but gorgeous entries this week. But of course, we had to narrow it down, so here are your Shout Outs for this week!

We loved the colours that Anja used on her sweet creation!

We thought that Kimberly was so clever to create a card based on one of the best parts of the season: the baking!

Moriah's simple colour scheme and candy theme are both striking and festive!

Congratulations ladies! Be sure to email Meredith at delightfulwaste@gmail.com for your blog badges.

And here is some bi-weekly inspiration from our design team!

Geri

Melissa

Ardyth

Meredith

Remember, you have until Wednesday to link up your creation on this post.

FFC08 - Trigger Challenge

Welcome back to another new challenge here at Festive Friday! We had a record number of entries for our last challenge, which is so exciting for us. It's such an awesome feeling to see that we are inspiring more and more players every week to work on their holiday card stash!

As usual, we had some favourites that we wanted to highlight for you!

Shout Outs!

We thought that using a tiny wooden bird to accent her bow was brilliant on Maureen's part!

Kirsty created such a peaceful little scene with her cute little friend hanging a little star on the tree!

We loved the serene feel of Marcia's card, using these beautiful icy tones - perfect for the holidays!

And our Winner!

We had to give Tanis a win for being the only designer to post a penguin in our gallery! Easy to forget that these cute little guys are birds too!

Congratulations ladies! Please email Meredith at delightfulwaste@gmail.com for your blog badges!

This week, we are issuing a Trigger Challenge. That means that whatever the trigger conjurs up for you, we want to see it in your creations. You don't have to use the actual trigger word in your projects, but we'd love for you to tell us how it inspired you!

Photo Source

Here is some inspiration for you from our Design Team:

Geri

Amber*

*Amber is feeling under the weather this week, so we've re-purposed an

older favourite project that suited our theme perfectly!

Meredith

This week, we are excited to be joined by Audrey Tokach, of Pink Ink Originals! 

My name is Audrey Tokach and I am a SAHM to two beautiful boys, Logan (11) and Joshua (9).  My wonderful husband Drew and I have been married for almost 12 years.  We live in sunny Florida, but I grew up in the Philadelphia, PA suburbs and will always call it home.  I am an animal lover (just ask my 2 Cocker Spaniels and 4 felines!).  I started scrapbooking in 2001 while pregnant with my oldest son and in 2009, I was introduced to the wonderful world of stamping.  After a few orders of clear stamps and Copic markers, and I was hooked!  Apart from stamping, I enjoy altered art and 3D home decor projects.  Please visit my blog, Pink Ink Originals, to see what I've been up to!! 

Here is Audrey's *adorable* card for this week's challenge:

Now that you've seen what we did with the trigger, it's your turn! Create any holiday themed project based on the trigger word and link us up below! You can combine our challenge with your other favourite challenges, and enter as many times as you like. This challenge will run until May 22, 2013 at 11:59PST. 

***Please remember to link up your actual blog post and not just your blog address!***

***As it takes time for our designers to visit your blog, please consider shutting off your captcha so that we might be able to more easily leave you some love!***

2013 Festive Friday Grand Prize! 

We want to give you even more incentive to stay on top of your holiday card stash, and we also want to encourage you to continue playing with us! Our last challenge will launch in the middle of November, and at that time, we will be offering a $40 Gift Certificate to one of three online shops to one lucky player who has participated in 15 or more of our challenges! Keep the images of your entries handy - you'll need them!