WWC69 - The Winner!

It's that time again.  Today we post our winners for Kath's Masculine CAS challenge.  Since this was Kath's challenge, she chose our winner, Penny Hanuszak, whose simple layout and elegant use of the new Swirly Bird stamp set made her card the first choice.  Click on Penny's name below her card to see the card she created keeping within Kath's clean and simple masculine theme.

Penny Hanuszak

Penny, we hope you'll display your winner's badge, shown below, proudly on your blog.

Our Honourable Mentions were voted on by the Watercooler Artists.  Congratulations to the ones who came out ahead, Cyndi  and Fiona Whitehead.  Cyndi, the simple use of the couple sitting quietly together and coloured absolutely beautifully, makes your card a sure Honourable Mention this week.  Fiona, using the Dapper Denim as your background and adding the white really illustrates how perfectly a "clean and simple" card does not have to be predominantly white.  Excellent work, ladies!

Cyndi Amaya

Fiona Whitehead

Cyndi and Fiona, we hope you'll proudly display the badge shown below on your blogs.

A special thank you as well for Alicia, Emma, Steffi, Julie, Heather, Melanie, Louise and Heather for sharing their wonderful cards.

Please remember to come back tomorrow (June 1st) for the new Watercooler Wednesday challenge and the wonderful creations by the Watercooler Artists.

WWC69 - Kath's Masculine CAS Challenge

Welcome to our new Watercooler Wednesday challenge.  This week we feature a challenge that's perfect for this time of year, and that's Kath's Masculine CAS challenge.  What is CAS?  CAS is an acronym for "clean and simple".  Generally speaking that would mean keeping layers to a minimum, leaving a great deal of white space, and having a minimal amount of embellishing or none at all. White space does not have to be white.  It can be whatever colour the main layer of the card happens to be.  Is that as clear as mud?  Well, with Father's Day coming soon, we hope to inspire you with some terrific samples by the Watercooler Artists.

But first we are happy to announce that we have a Guest Designer for this week, Kathe Deck.    In her words, "I'm part of a generations-long family of do-it-yourselfers, so I've been crafting since I could hold a pair of scissors.  I've dabbled in most crafts but always came back to paper crafting.  Card making is my particular favorite--I love sending a little happiness in the mail to family and friends, and it doesn't create any more things to dust at home.  Ive been a participant at the Watercooler since its beginning (even when it was just a place to chat at the Stampin' Connection), and I'm thrilled and honored to have been asked to be a guest designer."  You can see Kathe's card is a perfect example of CAS: a card with clean lines, minimal elements, large areas of white space and no embellishments.

Kathe Deck

And now it's the Watercooler Artists' turn.  As usual, if you click on the name under each card, you can visit the blog post to see details on how the card was created.  We begin with our hostess, Kath Ricks, who has used the Guy Greetings set simply and beautifully.

Kath Ricks

Jean Fitch

Gail Allen 

Libby Fens

Deborah Smart

Heidi Weaver

Marsha Reed

And now it's your turn.  You can join us by linking up your creation with the InLinkz at the bottom of this challenge.  

Remember:

          1.  This must be a new project---no back-linking to a previous post.

          2.  You must link your project back to our challenge (details at top of page).

          3.  You must link directly to your post, not simply your general blog.

          4.  Please link to no more than 4 challenges, including ours.

          5.  Have fun!

Please use the link-up below to share your project.  This Linky will close on Monday, May 30th at noon Mountain Daylight Time.

An InLinkz Link-up

WWC68 - The Winner

It's that time again.  Today we post our winners for Libby's color challenge.  Since this was Libby's challenge, she chose our winner, Penny Hanuszak, whose beautiful card featured all five colours in a lovely "window" design.  Click on Penny's name below her card to see the card she created using Libby's colors.

Penny Hanuszak

Penny, we hope you'll display your winner's badge, shown below, proudly on your blog.

Our Honourable Mentions were voted on by the Watercooler Artists.  Congratulations to the two who came out ahead, Heather Heroldt and Susie Nelson.  Heather, the way you combined the two challenges and used a balloon for each colour of the challenge worked out beautifully.  Susie, what a great way to show a new and very feminine version for the My Paper Pumpkin and also show off all five of the challenge colours.  Excellent work, ladies!

Heather Heroldt

Susie Nelson

Heather and Susie, we hope you'll proudly display the badge shown below on your blogs.

A special thank you as well for Steffi, Jayme, Melissa and Heather for sharing their wonderful cards.

Please remember to come back tomorrow (May 25th) for the new Watercooler Wednesday challenge and the wonderful creations by the Watercooler Artists.

WWC68 - Libby's Colour Challenge

Woo Hoo!  It's a color challenge and I know everyone loves those.  This week Libby Fens has decided to feature all five of the retiring 2014-16 In-Colors.  But don't let that scare you away.  You can use 3 or more of those wonderful colours to create your card.  Are you up for the challenge?

Colour challenges force one to use just the colours in the challenge, plus a neutral which is "free".  It's not always easy to stay within the palette, but that's why we have challenges---to force ourselves to work outside our comfortable "boxes".

This week we're changing things up just a bit.  Before we show off all the wonderful cards created by the Watercooler Artists, we're going to introduce this week's Guest Designer, Fiona Whitehead, and her lovely card.  "I've been crafting for over 20 years and started with scrap booking. I lived in Houston Texas from 2002 to 2005 and that's where I found my love for Stampin Up! When I returned to the UK in 2005 I was so excited when in 2008 SU came here and I signed up as a demo - one of the very few at that time. Sadly I had to leave after a year and I had to stop crafting. I returned to it this year both my crafting and SU. I still have and use some of those original inks I purchased in the US in 2002 - just shows what a great product it is. Outside of crafting I am an amateur opera singer, I have two dogs and two cats, two grown up kids and have been married to my husband for 31 years this year!" Fiona lives in Andover, Hampshire, the United Kingdom (but the internet shrinks the distance).

Fiona Whitehead

And now it's the Watercooler Artists' turn.  As usual, if you click on the name under each card, you can visit the blog post to see details on how the card was created.  We begin with Libby's wonderful use of the colours.

Libby Fens

Marsha Reed

Heidi Weaver

Gail Allen

Deborah Smart

Kath Ricks

Jean Fitch

Guest Designer Possibilities:  Participation "adds up".  With regular participation, we may invite you to become a guest designer.  And don't forget, participating increases your exposure to so many other people.  To be eligible, participation in 4 out of 6 challenges is necessary.

And now it's your turn.  You can join us by linking up your creation with the InLinkz at the bottom of this challenge.

Remember:

          1.  This must be a new project---no back-linking to a previous post.

          2.  You must link your project back to our challenge (details at top of page).

          3.  You must link directly to your post, not simply your general blog.

          4.  Please link to no more than 4 challenges, including ours.

          5.  Have fun!

Please use the link-up below to share your project.  This Linky will close on Monday, May 23rd, at noon Mountain Standard Time.

An InLinkz Link-up

WWC67 - The Winner

It's that time again, the day we pick our winners.  It's good to see both familiar names as well as new ones among the link-ups.

This challenge was a new one for us and for our followers.  We thought we'd throw in something totally different for a change.  What could be further from a card than a box?  And what a great variety of boxes were linked up!

This challenge was hosted by Deborah Smart and her choice for winner is (drumroll, please) Jayme Ziemer.  Deborah said that it was difficult not to choose the combination of gorgeous Pillow Box with a matching card (not that a card was at all necessary).

Jayme Ziemer

Jayme, we hope you'll display your winner's badge, shown below, proudly on your blog.

Because there were only five link-ups with one ineligible for the voting since it was included in too many challenges, we are choosing only one Honourable Mention this week.  This choice was voted on by all the Watercooler Artists and it was Fiona Whitehead's box which came out ahead.

Fiona Whitehead

Fiona, we hope you'll proudly display the badge shown below on your blog.

A special thank you as well for Janice, Kathe and Cyndi for sharing their wonderful boxes.

Please remember to come back tomorrow (May 18th) for the new Watercooler Wednesday challenge and the wonderful creations by the Watercooler Artists.

WWC67 - Deborah presents an "All Boxed Up" Challenge

Welcome to our new Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  This time we don't just want you to think outside the box, we want you to think all about the box.  Our hostess this week, Deborah Smart, is asking for boxes.  Think of the possibilities:  you can decorate a ready-made box, or make a box, or create a "box-like" project such as a shadow box or card-in-a-box.  Let the sky be your limit.

Just to give you some idea, the Watercooler Artists have gone all out to create some super examples that should help to get you inspired.  Not sure exactly what type of box you're looking at?  Just click on the name under the creation and it will take you right to the post which will explain it all.  We'll begin with Deborah's terrific shadow box.

Deborah Smart

Marsha Reed

Heidi Weaver

Gail Allen

Libby Fens

Kath Ricks

And now it's your turn.  You can join us by linking up your creation with the InLinkz at the bottom of this challenge.  

Remember:

          1.  This must be a new project---no back-linking to a previous post.

          2.  You must link your project back to our challenge (details at top of page).

          3.  You must link directly to your post, not simply your general blog.

          4.  Please link to no more than 4 challenges, including ours.

          5.  Have fun!

Please use the link-up below to share your project.  This Linky will close on Monday, May 16th at noon Mountain Daylight Time.

An InLinkz Link-up

WWC66 - The Winner

It's that time again.  Today we pick our winners.  It's good to see both familiar names and new names among the link-ups joining the challenges.  Sketch challenges are fun and draw a lot of participation.  We had some fabulous cards from which to choose.  That's great for the challenge but really tough on the team as we go to pick winners.  Unfortunately two of our participants could not be included for the voting since their cards were linked to a large number of challenges rather than the four (including ours) to which we restrict the link-ups.

We've begun something new with this challenge.  Our hostess picks the winner.  This week, therefore, Libby Fens picked Julie Gearinger as the winner of her challenge.  Julie, your card was a stunning version of the sketch.  Congratulations on "Rocking  the Watercooler" this week.

Julie Gearinger

Julie, we hope you'll display your winner's badge, shown below, proudly on your blog.

Our Honourable Mentions were chosen by the remaining Watercooler Artists.  Congratulations to Jayme Ziemer and Susie Nelson for your wonderful interpretations of the sketch.

Jayme Ziemer

Susie Nelson

Jayme and Susie, we hope you'll each proudly display the badge, shown below, on your blogs.

And, a special thank you as well to Margreet, Cindy, Heather, Kathe and Cyndi for linking their wonderful cards.

Please remember to come back tomorrow (May 11th) for the new Watercooler Wednesday challenge and the wonderful creations by the Watercooler Artists.

WWC66 - Libby's Sketch Challenge

Welcome to this week's sketch challenge.  Our newly permanent Watercooler Artist, Libby Fens, is hosting this week.  It's a great sketch and we had a lot of fun creating our cards just as we're certain you will, as well.

As with any sketch challenges, you can change the square shape of the card for a rectangle, you can turn it vertically or horizontally, as long as the finished card is clearly based on the sketch.

This week we're changing things up just a bit.  Before we show off all the wonderful cards created by the Watercooler Artists, we're going to introduce this week's Guest Designer, Penny Hanuszak, and her lovely card.  Penny has linked up some wonderful creations to our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and is also a frequent participant in our Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop.  She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia here in Canada and loves to create cards in her spare time.

Penny Hanuszak

And now it's the Watercooler Artists' turn.  As usual, if you click on the name under each card, you can visit the blog post to see details on how the card was created.  We begin with Libby's wonderful use of the retiring Cups & Kettles framelits.

Libby Fens

Marsha Reed

Heidi Weaver

Kath Ricks

Gail Allen

Deborah Smart

And now it's your turn.  You can join us by linking up your creation with the InLinkz at the bottom of this challenge.  

Remember:

          1.  This must be a new project---no back-linking to a previous post.

          2.  You must link your project back to our challenge (details at top of page).

          3.  You must link directly to your post, not simply your general blog.

          4.  Please link to no more than 4 challenges, including ours.

          5.  Have fun!

Please use the link-up below to share your project.  This Linky will close on Monday, May 9th at noon Mountain Daylight Time.

An InLinkz Link-up