Challenge #17 - Spring is in the Air! (and Top Artist winners!)

Spring Challenge
It’s officially Spring!  We love flowers and this is most everyone's favorite time of year!  With beautiful flowers in bloom everywhere, we challenge you to create a project with handmade flowers using whatever materials you choose (e.g., paper, fabric, etc.).

Check out Lia's flowers created using her Cricut (George and Basic Shapes cartridge) and glimmer mist.  She layered a five petal flower in three different sizes (.5" to 2.5"), sprayed then with water, and pinched up and then pulled down the petals one by one.  Believe it or not all of the flowers were made from white cardstock and colored with glimmer mist!  Her stems are also handmade.

Marie created this fabulous layout adorned with ribbon flowers!  She stamped the white background with Night of Navy ink from Stampin up! using an Itty Bitty background stamp and used her Cricut (Storybook and Hello Kitty cartridges) for the title and image.  

MsDee created a beautiful mini-album with lollipop flowers (so cute!) made from pages torn from a dictionary and coated with Utee embossing powder.  How gorgeous!

Myra made these begonias for her exploding box "Happy Birthday" card.  The begonias were made with a flower petal punch by the Punch Bunch.

Susie made a beautiful bouquet of roses from tissue paper and daffodils from Die Cuts With a View Gemstone cardstock in a vase decorated with an adorable Matilda stamped image.

Terry adorned her Easter egg basket with this gorgeous blinged-out carnation.

and then Terry made this awesome collage of an assortment of gorgeous flowers from patterned papers!! 

We certainly hope you're inspired!  Please show us what you've got by leaving a link to your creation in the comments!  Happy Spring!

Top Artist Winners
Thank you to all of the participants in our January and February challenges.  It was not an easy choice for us, but we are pleased to announce our Top Artist winners!  Our January winner is Yvonne for her Going Green project.  Yvonne made a gorgeous card with a recycled ribbon that had some serious sentimental value.  Check out her sweet project here.  Our February winner is Jana!  Jana made the most beautiful Valentine's day card for our Non-traditional Love challenge.  Get a peek at her card here.  Yvonne and Jana, please email us so we can send you the Top Artist badge to proudly display on your blogs!  

A Giveaway, an Award and a Prize!!

We have some exciting things to share with you. First, we are conducting our first open design team call. If you're interested in having some fun, pushing your creative development and inspiring other crafters, please click here for more details!

The Giveaway

We are doing another drawing for the participants in our challenges. This time, each participant in our November challenges will be entered into a drawing to win the 6 new Cuttlebug folders that are exclusive to HSN. If you haven't seen these yet, you have to go to HSN and check them out!! They are awesome!! Three are large (5x7) and three are A2 sized. They are the cutest Christmas designs and the lucky winner will get them just in time to finish up those holiday projects! So go ahead and enter our challenges this month. You have up to four chances to be entered to win!

The Award

Well really it's two awards. Each month, the GSP design team members will review all challenge submissions made for the month and select one talented individual to receive our "Top Artist" award. The winner will receive our Top Artist badge to post on their website or blog. This month we're announcing two winners because we're a little behind. So....drumroll please...the winner for the month of September's challenges is Etha! Etha, please email us so we can send you the badge! Etha inspired the team with her beautiful "Boo" word book that you can see here. The Top Artist for the month of October is Terry EO!! She created the most beautiful and moving vintage/heritage layout. Terry EO, please email us so we can send you the badge!

The Prize!

Okay, if you haven't noticed yet we have a blinkie on our sidebar. We want to share the love and inspiration we have here at GSP and by posting our blinkie on your blog or web site you help us do just that! So, every now and then our design team hops by your blogs and when we spot our blinkie it warms our hearts. We randomly selected one of our followers who posted our blinkie on their blog to receive a small token of our appreciation (a Martha Stewart drippy goo punch, a roll of Cricut vinyl and some Heidi Swapp bling). Who's the lucky winner? It's the wonderful Cathy T at KoalaTKreations. You have to check out her adorable blog here. Cathy, please email us your mailing address so we can get these goodies out to you!