Final Linky Party - Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge

The goal of the Handmade Christmas Challenge has been to encourage #CreativeGoodness by making handmade throughout the year, to be able to decorate your home for the holidays, as well as give as gifts.  

We understand if you have been busy and haven't had a chance to make anything handmade, but we still want to invite you to join the fun and hope you will find inspiration by seeing what others have made, as well as enjoy some of the tutorials and tips that are shared along the way.

This is our last Linky Party for this challenge and everyone is invited to join the fun.  You can share everything you've made in 2014 that you plan to use to decorate your home, or give as Holiday gifts, including items that you may have recently made.



Christmas is now a few weeks away, but there is still plenty of time to make a handmade item and join this challenge,  where the Linky Party this month will be open through December 10th.  There are over 70 prizes that will be awarded to those that participate in this Linky Party, as well as those that participated in one or more Linky Parties this year for this challenge.  The more events you participated in the more chances you have to win prizes.  In randomly awarding winners, SewCalGal will be looking at all the entries to look for those that have shared a tutorial along the way, those that may have created the most unique handmade holiday item, possibly those that have made the most handmade items, or the largest.  

Winners will be announced between December 16-25th and in keeping with the spirit of this challenge, there will be some surprises in how winners are selected, but most will be randomly selected based on simply entering the challenge and making handmade items that fit with our holiday theme in 2014.

Christmas Countdown

SewCalGal wants to recognize and thank all the sponsors that have generously donated prizes for the Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge.  Click here for a complete list of prizes that will be randomly awarded to participants of these monthly challenges, in December.

Around The Bobbin,  , Chatterbox Quilts, Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio, Classic Metal Company, Fairfield Road Designs, Fat Quarter Shop, Frivolous Necessity,Geta's Quilting Studio, Hoffman California Fabrics, Indygo Junction, Leah Day Designs,    Martingale, Patrick Lose Quilt & Create Studio,    Timeless Treasures, and Whistlepig Creek Productions.

How do you enter?  Make handmade  gifts for the holidays or decorations for your home for the holidays, anytime in 2014 and enter in any of the monthly challenges for a chance to win prizes.   Bloggers and non-bloggers can participate and you can make your items anytime throughout the month, but you can only share what you make one time in one monthly challenge.  The exception is with this challenge, you are encouraged to also share a photo that shows ALL of the items you have handmade for the holidays in 2014 and hopefully you will provide a count in your blog post or flickr description that you link to in this linky party.    You may have made just 1 item, 10, 20, 100 or tbd items, but share a photo showing all, photos of what you've recently made, and how many handmade items you've made for the holidays in 2014.  

An InLinkz Link-up

Rules to enter this challenge:

While there are many sponsors and many wonderful prizes for those that enter in one or more of the monthly Linky Parties in the Handmade Christmas Challenge, that are open to quilters worldwide, as SewCalGal will be shipping this particular prize to the lucky winner and currently has limited funds for shipping prizes, the winner of this bundle will need to be a US resident. 

1) Projects need to be made in 2014 (they do not need to be made during the 10 day window of a a given monthly linky party.  But they need to be something you made for a Holiday gift or to decorate your home for the holidays in 2014.  Please do not enter projects that you giveaway throughout the year, or previous holidays as that doesn't bring you good creative kharma!

2) You can enter one or more completed projects, of any form of handmade creativity, but your linky needs to be in a current post (or non-bloggers can upload their photos and provide a link to a view able line tool like PhotoBucket, Flickr, etc.).   note:  Future challenges will require you to use only Flickr.  Click here to see a tutorial for using flickr.

3) Participants are asked to include comments in their post that share insights on the design(s) they use, any tips they wish to share, and if they made something with their own design they may wish to share a tutorial.  Your help to encourage others to make handmade gifts, throughout the year to give as gifts or to decorate their home, is appreciated.  And, of course, you can also inspire others by sharing your projects, providing tips and tutorials, as well as recognizing the source of the design for your project, should others be interested in making it too!

4) Bloggers are asked to include in their post information that that shows they have taken the "Pledge to make handmade Christmas Gifts in 2014" and are participating in this challenge.  It would be appreciated if you would encourage others to also participate, or at least come look at all of the entries each month, as hopefully we'll inspire other quilters and increase awareness of designs, tips, tutorials to help make beautiful Christmas gifts and decorations.  Your blog post also needs to be dated during the period of this linky party (do not link to old posts).

This linky party will be open thru the 10th of  this December, to give participants plenty of time to enter this monthly challenge, including time to make more handmade holiday items. 

If you are not familiar with how to use a linky click here for a tutorial.

For blogger participants that are interested in posting a badge, the badge code can be found on the main page for this event.  Thank you!

Let's not forget the spirit of this challenge is to make handmade gifts for Holidays or decorations for the holiday season, throughout the year.  We also hope to help increase awareness of designs, free patterns, tutorials and other products that help to make such products. And, your help in inspiring others to make handmade for Christmas is appreciated.  PR Angels are also appreciated.

If you have questions for this Challenge, please read the FAQ.

In some cases an UFO that is finished in 2014 may count, when a good part of it is worked on in 2014.  But those that are simply putting in a single stitch this year to count it as an entry  for this challenge will not have good kharma.  Please strive to adhere to the intent of this challenge.....Make Handmade in 2014 for Christmas gifts and decorations for the 2014 Holiday season!

Winners will be announced between December 16th-25th!

Visit the main page for this event, by clicking here, to see a complete  list of prizes. While many prizes are open to quilters from around the world, some prizes will be shipped to US Only winners, where shipping costs are compliments of SewCalGal.  Non-US winners may pay for shipping costs, if they wish to receive such prizes.

Thank you to everyone that has participated in these monthly Linky Parties.  There have been many wonderful handmade items that have been shared that are inspirational gifts, as well as some great tutorials.  SewCalGal has also received a tutorial by a non-blogger who handmade some lovely jewelry and I hope to have that tutorial posted here, on my blog, this week.

  Email SewCalGal if you have questions.