Hope & Chances Charity Kits

I had a blitz on some outstanding Hope and Chances Charity Kits recently, whilst trying to rest this flipping shoulder. And here are the results:

November 2020

In aid of Action for Stammering Children 

A lovely card to make - possibly my favourite one out of this session, but probably more suited to Thanksgiving 2021 now! I did a boo-boo and only went and added the front panels to the kraft card blank so that it opened as a V shape, with the apex at the bottom, duh. Quick bit of trimming of the whole front of the card and then popped it onto a side opening white card blank. Everything in this kit was supplied - just some gentle TH inking of the elements to do.

February 2021 

In aid of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

And the inside:

Everything was supplied, I coloured the 'ruler' pieces with TH Distress inks then just added Josy Rose Hot Fix Nail Heads to the centre of the flowers.

March 2021

In aid of the British Lung Foundation

I bought two of these kits as they're so pretty - and all the cutting has been done already. All it needed was to gently Tim Holtz ink up the flowers and add little diamante centres to them - everything else was provided.

In fact, shame on me, I have two different NBUS die sets to make swing cards which I bought a while ago after making a similar card using a previous Hope & Chances kit. Writes that on 'must do' list.

And last, but not least:

April 2021

In aid of Tiggywinkles - British wildlife rescue hospital

I know someone who has a Springtime Birthday and thought this would be a nice change from a straightforward 'Birthday' card. Once again, everything came with the kit, I just added the diamante centres to the already coloured flowers. It looks better in real life, the layers are clearer - honestly!

I buy at least one of Christine's kits each month, but don't always make them up in the right order. Christine will be publishing her latest Charity Kit this coming Sunday morning over on her blog HERE. It's a great way to support a variety of charities in the UK - as well as having a fun kit to play with!

Hope and Chances Charity Kit - December 2020

I loved the Hope and Chances Charity kit for December although the 'Thank you' sentiment wasn't right for me to be honest but I knew I could change that. The kits were sold in aid of 'Last Chance Animal Rescue', which of course tugged at my heartstrings right away.

This is the card I made from the kit:

I made the card exactly to Christine's instructions, apart from a couple of tweaks. I added Clear Wink of Stella to the flowers and leaves before popping them onto the card. An idea I got from our lovely Kath B a while ago. Then found a snippet of white card, the whitest I could find here to match and stamped the sentiment using a very old FunStamps wood mounted stamp and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink. Then die cut the sentiment into a square, exactly the same size as the one that came with the kit - and ran a silver Calligraphy pen around the edges for a little extra definition.I love the idea of creating a 'dropped shadow' by splitting a silver die cut exactly like the white one and offsetting it behind the white one.

And yes, the camera has picked up a bit of a ripple on the square silver backing layer. I think the silver card should have been thicker, although in real life it's not too noticeable. I'm just happy to help Christine's fund raising and also have a card kit to play with each month!

I'm entering this card into ScrappyMo's 'Rudolph Days' Challenge for January HERE. It runs from the 25th to the end of each month and is a great way to add to your Christmas cards (what do you mean - already?).

That brings my card count for Christmas 2021 up to 17 already.

Hope & Chances Charity Kit - October 2020

What a disappointment the other week when the October Hope & Chances Charity kit ran out mid morning on the day that Christine posted it on her blog. First Sunday of the month early morning UK time. Bit of an involved story but some of us were so upset not to be able to support her wonderful work (plus the kit is absolutely gorgeous!), and then Christine very sweetly set to and made up a few more. The girl is amazing to put in so much time and effort raising money for various charities. Sadly she had run out of the circular sentiments but I recognised them as Craftwork Cards die cuts and knew I had some squirrelled away and was able to share with Kath from the Playground as well - someone else who'd missed out. 

The kits were sold in aid of MNDA - Motor Neuron Disease Association - yet another very worthwhile charity to support.

Our Kath from the Playground has already published her card but I like to keep a record of cards I make so here's mine as well:

It's self-explanatory and everything came in the kit apart from the sentiment circle, glue, sticky pads (I used thin ones for the sentiment circle) - and clear Wink of Stella which I used on the very deep red poinsettia flowers, a tip I picked up from Kath - along with some tiny little clear gems.

In the end, Kath and I both bought two kits each (so perfect for special Christmas cards) and later I bought the last remaining one, rather then Christine be left with one unsold one (that's my excuse anyhow!). They even came with pretty silver envelopes to made them even more special.

Then I went on a mission to find the Spellbinders gatefold die that Christine had used. I think it's from a Spellbinders Club issue and the set is called 'Many Thanks' - and in the end did track it down on eBay - in the USA! And there it will remain I'm afraid. The price wasn't too bad but apparently eBay control the onward freight of a lot of items and they wanted to charge me almost $40 for that alone on top of the cost of the die set! Daylight robbery surely!

One tip if you do fancy buying Christine's Charity Kits - set your alarm for 7am UK time on the first Sunday of the month if you don't want to miss out. It was a close call this time.

And, this card is for ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days Challenge for October 2020. Still a few days to go if you want to join in!

Hope and Chances charity kit - August 2020

The August 2020 Hope and Chances charity kit has been languishing on my desk for ages - I finally knuckled down and made it yesterday:

Everything was cut, or die cut, ready to assemble. All it needed was glue, red line tape (my choice to layer as well as to adhere the flowers for its strength), a ball ended tool to shape the leaves and flowers (after I'd coloured them using my long neglected Aqua Markers and a water brush) and finally some sparkly gems in the flower centres.

The top paper has Happy Birthday printed on it, in different fonts.

A fun card to make!

Rudolph Days - September 2020

This is one monthly challenge I'd really hate to miss - it's Rudolph Days over at ScrappyMo's. And here's my entry. Made in double quick time as it's September's Hope and Chances charity kit:

It's self-explanatory really. The kit came with absolutely everything included, apart from glue and thin sticky pads!

Just realised I still haven't made up August's kit yet - it got buried under a pile of stuff on my desk, and only surfaced last week when I had a good tidy up!

New Hope and Chances mini kit on sale!

Christine has just put another charity mini kit of two cards onto her Hope and Chances blog, sold in aid of the NHS.

If you want one, be fast as they sell out in double quick time!  Here's the link.

xxx

Hope and Chances - May 2020 card kit

The Hope and Chances card kit for May, sold in aid of the Whizz-Kidz charity, is such a pretty one, sadly now sold out. You have to be so quick to buy these now, they're flying out of Christine's craft cabin door! They go on sale on the first Sunday of the month - June's kit is in aid of The British Hedgehog Preservation Society. I'll most certainly be hoping to get my paws on that one.

This is my finished card, I stuck to the initial design:

The kit came with everything included, apart from glue and either ink pads or pencils to colour the leaves and petals. The cream is a deeper shade than shown in the above photo - bright sunshine here when I took it!

I layered two pieces of cream card onto the A5 card front, topped it with two lovely 'fleur de lis' long die cuts and a square frame. Then coloured the leaves and flowers using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, two shades for the leaves and two for the flowers. It reminds me of a Clematis Montana with pink streaked flowers that we had in the back garden until fairly recently.

The sentiment also came with the kit so it was just a case of tucking that into the leafy stem and attaching it to the card front. 

Kath (from the Snippets Playground) has already posted about her card here. She cleverly did some tweaking to the kit layout and sentiment, unlike me who rather predictably followed the layout exactly. And she also added Clear Wink of Stella to the flowers and leaves, an idea which I pinched, after colouring and before attaching to the card. Thanks Kath!

Then I had to rummage right through my deep A4 Really Useful Box of pearls, gems and other small embellishments. I have tons of packets of pearls but they were all too white - then I found just a few creamy white different sized ones in an open packet. Bingo!

Our CCTV picked up a fox on camera the other night. In itself that's not too unusual, but it was heading into the dense display of shrubs and such in the front garden. Possibly just for a nosey but it's also a perfect place to make a den and bring up a family! Watch this space.

Hope and Chances card kits for the NHS

Christine Emberson, owner of Hope and Chances, popped back up on my radar a few weeks ago - and I've made a point of trying to buy each of her card kits since then, which she sells to raise money for various charities. I posted March's card a short while ago on here, then sadly I missed out on April's kit - they flew out of the door apparently.

However, Christine put together some 'rainbow' mini card kits during April to raise money for the NHS. Here are the end results, all just 4" x 4" square in size:

Self-explanatory really, all I needed was glue and thin sticky pads, even the sentiments were already stamped - so relaxing to make a card from a kit. As well as raise money for worthwhile causes.

My only boo-boo was the card with the heart rainbow arching out of the small white envelope. I managed to mislay the mini envelope from the kit! However, it was an ideal excuse to treat myself to MFT's 'Mini Mail' set of dies. So cute - and the set comes with the lovely envelope to fold, plain and scalloped inserts, little stamps shapes, tiny hearts and a few other dies. I think the mini envelopes will be a lovely addition to Christmas cards as well. 

And, as I used the set of dies for the very first time, I'm joining in again with Darnell's NBUS Challenge #14 for May.

Sheesh - I actually typed April just then, before remembering that it has whizzed past and we're now into May! And, May's card kit is already on the way to 'chez moi'.

Hope & Chances kit card

Anyone here remember Hope & Chances, run by Christine Emberson? She's now closed her on line shop (before the current situation arose) but is continuing to sell monthly kits to raise money for charity. Here's the link to her blog page telling you more about the kits.

This is the card I made using the kit for March 2020. It comes with everything you need, including a card blank and envelope if the project is a card. All components are already trimmed and die cut (Christine was a Spellbinder Ambassador for a long while). Plus you get comprehensive, illustrated instructions as well. All you need is some form of glue, double sided adhesive tape and - sometimes - sticky pads:

Really it's self explanatory so I won't go into detail about how I glued and stuck it together :) Ha - although I lost one of the smaller black dots for the rear lights - and a sheet of black peel off dots sent to me by a lovely friend came to the rescue! Pretty isn't it - all the kits are rather special. April's kit will be available from Sunday 5th April.