Sarah Hurley Challenge News!

Hi Everyone

Today I'm popping in to share some news with you, after much thought and consideration, I have decided that after 4 years, this will be our very last monthly challenge.

We've had such fun running the challenges, meeting lots of new people (some of whom became part of my team and all of whom became friends, colleagues and people who's blogs I enjoyed visiting!) My little business has grown beyond my wildest dreams and has done so very very quickly, in that time I have learned a lot about what you are all looking for, what you (and I!) need and how myself and my team can provide that for you. As you know we changed the name of the blog and how we work, a little bit, earlier this year and this will be a continuation of those changes.

We hope you will stick around here on the Sarah Hurley 365 blog as it will be filled with inspiration and projects as well as some exciting new features and areas that my team are currently hard at work on! You'll see a gradual change here between now and the first quarter of 2015 as we implement our new plan and I hope you love what we have in store for you as much as I do!

I'd like to thank every single one of you who has entered a challenge over the last 4 years, I hope you will continue to share your work with us here and over on my Facebook page (we still like to see what you're up to and look for new people for future projects!) and we still want to hear from you so please do leave us comments on our new projects and plans as we go - it will help us to bring you more of what you want! I'd also like to thank the Sarah Hurley Design Team past and present for all of their hard work in making the challenges fun and inspiring, it's been so fun!

I'm so pleased to be ending on a Halloween challenge as it's truly one of my favourite crafting holidays - I can't wait to see what you come up with! (please see the previous post to enter the challenge!)

Thank you so much for dropping by today

Sarah x

CHALLENGE 95 - FAVOURITE THINGS

JAINE

Wow when I was asked to host the challenge 'Favourite things' I had no idea what a dilemma that would pose. I have so many favourite things it was so hard to choose just one to showcase so the only way to show you just a few of them is to make a project which includes one or two.

I adore making mini albums, especially from recycled or unusual things, so here's a mini made with paper bags. I've stamped and embossed the front panel with the Fancy Deco Lattice stamp one of my favourite backgrounds. I had to get inky with some spray ink and I love love washi tape so what better than to make my own. Later in in the month I'll be showing you how I made that.

Anyway, here the team show you their favourite things.  Link up below to show us your favourites and don't forget if you use a Sarah Hurley product in your entry you can win an extra special prize.


Elaine

I made a necklace using printable shrink plastic and the Curio set with my jewellery stash

Nicole

One of my favourite things is to use up paper scraps. I love nothing more than being able to get rid of all those left over bits and pieces. I often leave them in a corner of my desk for a while to be able to grab them and use them up as inspiration strikes! On my card below everything was a scrap on my desk. I used a sentiment stamp set from Sarah Hurley and the paper in behind the die cut hearts is from her paper range also.

Ria

I love card making and it makes me happy whenever I can incorporate my other craft favorite which is sewing. For this month's challenge, I added a favorite craft material I used in sewing which is felt. Sarah's felt flower is just pretty and I have to add it as my embellishment. The pinks and blues are my favorite colors + die cuts which I all incorporate in this month's challenge. I used a combination of different paper kits: April kit-Happy, July kit-All at Sea, and Be Mine kit. The felt is from St Marks add on kit.    

Claire S

For this challenge I decided I wanted to use my favourite colour - hot pink, a photo of my favourite Summer shoes and the title of one of my favourite Summer songs...

I used papers from a selection of Sarah's A Few Of My Favourite Things Kits, the photo is an Instagram print from Printed.com and added a selection of yellow brads from my own stash.

Sharon

Like Nicole, I love making the most of paper scraps. I also love my filofax which has become very dated and looks nothing like the fancy ones I see on Instagram every day. So I found the perfect solution! While waiting for my new academic diary refills to arrive I made new divider pages from paper scraps from my kits with washi tape and my label maker.Wow what a difference it's made! Excuse the photo quality- my camera's still not working and my phone isn't the best for bright colours.

Claire

I have used my favourite colours, shades of blue and teal to create a set of 4x4" mini notelets. The Backgrounds are watercolour pencils overstamped with a little sequin detail stamp from one of Sarah's previous AFOMFT kits (which is where I have collected the embellishments from too over the months). 

The sentiment stamps are also available from Sarah's shop.

Clare

For this challenge I wanted to make a card using my most used stamp range....Doodle Dolls. Here I have used stamps from the Princess set. I am also a huge fan of Sarah's AFOMFT monthly kits.

Lisa

Like Jaine I was in a real dilemma as I have so many favourite things. But then I settled on idea....one of my favourite things is to make 'To-do' lists so I thought I would combine that with one of my favourite colour combos of lemon and grey and alter a little clipboard to use as a list holder. The papers are from one of of the AFOMFT kits.

Carol

I made my PL page for February using AFOMFT Kits, Sarah's files from the Silhouette Store and Sarah's Stamps those three are among my favourite things, as are the items I have put on my page.

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge 92 - ANYTHING GOES

Happy May Bank Holiday :)  

It's Natalie here with the May challenge of ANYTHING GOES - I do love that musical :D 

So show us your crafty makes - it can be anything - remember if you show us what you create with Sarah Hurley products then you are also in the running for a fantastic seperate prize (see below)

I created this layout using AFOMFT February Kit. I've wanted to scrap this photo for quite some time but have never had pastel colours to work with. The peachy pink paper worked perfectly. 

Some close ups of Sarah's Flair and wooden embellishments.

A close up of the cluster of embellishments. 
The gold sequin from the kit and cut outs from the snip n sticks. The gold and brown rose is Prima.

Have a look at what the fantastically creative team are showcasing...

Tania

For my card I have used a number of inks to stamp the arrow out of the Stamp set Special Edition -On your Bike by Jaine Drake I then used the tricycle and sentiment from the same set. I finished off by using Sarah Hurley's Block Alphabet stamps to add the sentiment. I have made it for one of my tutees the whole Tutor group leave me to go on exam leave on the 9th of May :( Txx.

      

    Lisa

I have used papers and stamps from one of Sarah's A Few of My Favourite Things kits, along with Sentiments Stamps, paper piercing, doodling and a few UTEE Embellishments.

                                
Clare
These amazing papers are from various ' A Few Of My Favourite Things' kits.....a favourite colour combo of mine. The stamps I used are from the 'Dream A Little Dream' Doodle Doll and 'Be Amazing' stamp sets (eyes only)....and for those that don't know Sarah has designed other sets in this range which you can also mix and match, it's so much fun!

        

Nicole

I decided to take the anything goes theme literally and go with using the Doodle Doll Zombie Girl stamps for my project this month! I also used the Chevron Mask on my tag background and some Sarah Hurley papers for my brains and the paper piecing on the zombie girl too.

 

Jaine 

I thought I'd make a mini album with a sheet of paper from the March kit. More pictures to come in a later post. 

Ria

I used Sarah's Be Mine scrapbooking kit for my card. I love the colors on this kit and I have used the same in some of my other card projects. For the heart, I cut it from the Snip N Stick embellishment sheet from the same kit. For my sentiment I used Sarah's Block Alpha stamp that I embossed in white, while the typewriter stamp is from the Be Mine stamp set.  

Elaine

I used a monthly kit with crafting software to add a sentiment to the typewriter paper, sized it to fit on a card then I matted and layered the image and papers from the kit with kraft card like the base card. I embellished with complimenting buttons.

 

Carol 

I decided to liven up my organiser with files from Sarah's Portfolio in the Silhouette Store. I used the  Personal Organiser Set  and  7 Days of the Week File Tabs. I cut Organiser Set out on some gorgeous papers from AFOMFT kits. Full details on my blog.

Claire N

Hi, I have used off cuts of all the papers from Sarah's 'A Few of My Favourite Things Kits'

Sharon

The one card every year I dread-my son's birthday card! I can never find anything teenage-y enough but Sarah's moustache paper from AFOMFT kit is perfect! I added faux stitching around the edges,a plastic moustache embellishment and a badge,all from Sarah's shop. Then I found I'd ran out of wrapping paper so I used Sarah's moustache stamp to decorate a piece of paper. I'm pleased to say it was a success,especially the badge!

Claireliz

I altered a little notebook using papers, sequins, a lightbulb stamp and a lightbulb paper clip from Sarah's AFOMFT kit, and stamps from Sarah's Picture This, Alpha block and Home stamp sets

Prizes

 First place - £10 voucher for Sarah's shop

 Second place - a blog badge ( email Sarah)

 Third place - a blog badge ( email Sarah)

This months special prize for one lucky winner drawn from entries using any of Sarah's products is.....

You have until 25th of May to enter the challenge.

We can't wait to see what you create.

Happy crafting! N x

An InLinkz Link-up

In Stitches with a Voodoo Doll stamp.

Hi, it's Carol here today, and I am going to share my DT creation for this months  "Stitching - Real or Faux" Challenge.

I made a "Spell Book" using pretties from this month's AFOMFT Printable Documented 365 kit , the adorable Voodoo Doll Thinking of You Stamp and Block Alpha Stamps .

I printed out the "Doodles" card from the kit and coloured it in using Promarkers and Flexmarkers. I chose warm "dark" colours rather than bright ones, as I felt it went better with a Spell Book. I also printed out the Skull & Crossbones & the Yellow Skull & Crossbones card, to layer up and pop onto the doodle page. I stamped Spells onto the yellow card. I stamped the Voodoo Doll onto white card and coloured him in, added some faux stitching and popped him onto foam padding for some dimension. I layered the Doodle sheet onto a piece of navy card, and added some white faux stitches using a chalk pen. I am naughty, as I keep forgetting to take pictures as I go. I will do this next time, promise!

Ingredients

AFOMFT Printable Documented 365 Kit 

Voodoo Doll Thinking of You Stamp

Block Alpha Stamps

I hope this has inspired you to try something different, and why not pop over and join our "Stitching - Real or Faux" challenge for a chance to win some great prizes. Bye for now, thanks for popping by.

Time to try digital scrapbooking.

Hello, it's Carol here and it's my turn to share a creation with you. Today I will be sharing a digital scrapbooking layout page using Sarah's Be Mine Digital Kit. I decided to use a picture of our cat Aggie, her Sunday name is Agatha, and our surname is Christie so the typewriter in this kit is just perfect for  what I had in mind.

I used Digital Designer, but you can use Serif or any other software you are comfortable using. I chose to make the Lay Out 8x8 and used the Bubbles paper as my base, the colours in the kit all match perfectly and can be mixed and matched and that is really what I wanted to show with this page.

The kit has loads of awesome journalling cards that can be used for lots of different things from Project Life to notecards. I layered up a couple of those then popped Aggie's picture onto them, I added some teal striped washi tape to make it look like the piccie was stuck down. I thought the typewriter was perfect considering Aggie's name, and added a wee story onto the paper coming out of it.

I popped a cloud embellishment on, and some of the cute paper planes to add some extra prettiness to the page. And I love the heart border and couldn't resist it, I think it finishes the page of perfectly.

Made using Be Mine Digital Kit 

I hope you like this page, I had great fun making it and loved trying something different.

Remember there is still time to enter our Speech Bubble Challenge. 

Thanks for visiting today, have a good day, Carol xx

Challenge 1

The first challenge!!

My first challenge is going to be a colour challenge, I love to mix unusual colours and get so inspired by seeing just the right colour ink or paint, I obsessively collect paint charts from DIY stores and cut them up to make my own combinations. So my challenge is to make your project using these colours as your main colours (you can add small bits of accent colour if you want to) - Steel Grey, Petrol Blue and a lovely Sagey / Olivey Green.

The Design Team will be uploading their work here as inspiration for you over the next few days. You have until midnight on Sunday 1st August to post your links in the comments, the winner will be announced on 4th August.

Thanks for playing!
Sarah x

Blog Hop Winners!

The Blog Hop Winners from the weekend are:

From the Challenge Blog

Saturday - Emma - you win a copy of Woodland Whimsies
Sunday - Savannah O'Gwynn - you win a copy of Woodland Whimsies 2

From My Blog

Saturday - Patsi - you win a copy of Woodland Whimsies
Sunday - Catnap - you win a copy of Woodland Whimsies 2

and from the rest of the Design Team.....

Clare

Saturday - CraftyKitten
Sunday - JLJ Designs

Meesh

Saturday - Vicky
Sunday - Mel Sanford

Debs

Saturday - Fi
Sunday - Amanda Jones

Shell

Saturday - Coops
Sunday - Sharon Angel

Lisa

Saturday - Lil Daffodil
Sunday - Evy C

Teri

Saturday - Karen Q
Sunday - Lynn

Donna

Saturday - BunnyFreak
Sunday - Fi's Cards & Crafts

Ev

Saturday - Hazel (Didos)
Sunday - Marybeth

Congrats to all our winners! Please e-mail me here with you address so I can post your prize out.

Sarah x

Blog Hop - Day 2!

Welcome to the Blog Hop!

Thank you for joining us for day 2 of our Blog Hop, today you have the chance of winning my second craft CD - Woodland Whimsies 2

to win, leave a comment on this blog and / or any of the design teams posts today - remember the more you post on, the more chances to win!

Before I go I'd like to share a couple of my favourite projects with this CD:

This CD has a slightly darker colour palette than the first and some great new characters. Everything co-ordinates with Woodland Whimsies perfectly!

Now hop over to see Debs, Lisa, Shell, Michelle, Teri, Clare, Donna, Me and My Mum!

Both CD's area available to buy on my website (click here)

I will be back on Create & Craft on the 8th August with these plus LOTS of new products - I hope you'll be watching!

Thanks for playing
Sarah x

Blog Hop - Day 1!

Welcome to the Blog Hop!

Thank you for joining us, today you have the chance of winning my first craft CD - Woodland Whimsies

to win, leave a comment on this blog and / or any of the design teams posts today - remember the more you post on, the more chances to win!

Before I go I'd like to share a couple of my favourite projects with this CD:

Now hop over to see Debs, Lisa, Shell, Michelle, Teri, Clare, Donna, Me and My Mum!

See you back here tomorrow for your chance to win Woodland Whimsies 2!

Thanks for playing
Sarah x

Welcome!

Welcome to the 'Sarah Hurley Designs' Challenge Blog!!

We will be launching the blog this weekend with a blog hop featuring the work of my fabby design team - including some new faces! and some lovely prizes to be won!

I will be posting the first challenge tomorrow, so look out for it - can't wait to see the entries already, LOL

Sarah x