A Great Weekend For Stamping and Scrapping!

The weather has finally given us a break from the heat here in the North East US.  I, for one, am really enjoying the cooler temperatures.  It was cloudy yesterday, and today, but much cooler and breezy.  It rained a little yesterday, so I took advantage of the weekend day and did some "homey" things.  Chopped and froze some peppers, squash, onions, and tomatoes we bought at the farmers market, then I headed to my craft room.  Here's a card I made, with a listing below for the challenges I created it for:

Penny Black Saturday Challenge http://pennybfriendssaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/ , where you had to use purple, cream, and brown;
Our Daily Bread http://ourdailybreaddesignsblog.blogspot.com/ , where we had to use buttons, brads, or eyelets;
Penny Black At Allsorts http://pennyblackatallsorts.blogspot.com/ , which was to use punches on your card;
and
Card Patterns http://www.cardpatterns.blogspot.com/ , which was a sketch challenge, and here's the sketch: 

I enjoy sketch challenges, color challenges, inspiration challenges, well, pretty much all kinds of challenges.  If you like to make cards, or scrapbook pages, also, and haven't entered any challenges, I hope you will give them a try.  There are so many out there.  To enter, you usually post your picture of your card onto your blog, if you have one.  If you do not have a blog, you can join any of the free web sites, such as:
Two Peas In A Bucket http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/,
Coast Stampers http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/,
Treasured Scrapbooking http://www.treasuredscrapbooking.com/ , and Simply Scrapping Crafts http://simplyscrapping.ning.com/. 
I've included links for you to make it easy to find these sites.  They're free to join, and each of these sites has fabulous forums, galleries of cards and scrapbook pages, challenges, and fun stuff going on!  Once you join, you can download your pictures of your projects on the site.  Then, to enter a challenge, you simply click on the link in the challenge blog, and link your card from wherever you have it in a gallery.

Here's a quick run-down on the types of challenges you may find.
COLOR CHALLENGE - These usually post two or three or more color swatches for you to use in your card.
SKETCH CHALLENGE - Just as the name implies, you are given a sketch to follow.  It is not necessary to follow the sketch exactly, just as long as it is recognizable.  For example, in the Card Patterns sketch above, I pretty much followed the sketch, but I added the ribbon.  You can also "flip" the sketch, or change around the arrangement to please yourself. 
SPECIFIC CHALLENGES - The challenge blog will ask you to do specific things, such as use lace somewhere on the card, or uuse paper piecing, or letters and/or numbers, or embossing powder.
THEME CHALLENGE - Themes may include seasons, such as the Everything Autumn challenge going on now at the Hero Arts blog, Shine/Sparkle, New beginnings, Clean & Simple.

Here's a link to The Daily Dare, which lists several dozen blogs that issue challenges, and links to them: http://dailydare4u.blogspot.com/ .

Hope that helps and you'll try a challenge or two.  Some even give prizes!!
Enjoy your holiday weekend.

Blessings and peace,

lynda