Hard to believe that Christmas is seven (7) months away. While there are some that can wait till the last minute to make handmade gifts, many of us can't. Thus, SewCalGal is hosting monthly Linky Parties where you can enter to win prizes by making handmade gifts for Christmas, or items you will use to decorate your home. The trick is to make them early vs the last minute, which is why I'm hosting these parties.
Make handmade anytime throughout the year to be ready. You can make items any month, every month, anytime during the month. But you need to make it in 2014 and it needs to be something you'll give as a Christmas gift this year or use to decorate your home. Handmade items you plan to give during the year won't help you get ready to give handmade at Christmas.
The Linky Party is also about sharing and inspiring others to make handmade. Sharing insights about the design for your project, or even sharing tips or a tutorial are appreciated. But most of all, I hope we can all inspire each other.
For more info, visit the main page for this event: Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge. You can also get to this page by a clicking on a tab at the top of my page, underneath the blog header. I'll update this page throughout the year to contain links for the monthly Linky Parties as they go live.
There are over 70 prizes, so your chance of winning is actually quite good.
SewCalGal wants to recognize and thank all of our sponsors:
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.
Today, I want to share insights on one of our sponsors for this event: Many of you are aware Leah Day Designs. Leah has donated a PDF copy of one of her books as a prize to one lucky winner:365 Free Motion Quilting Designs", by Leah Day (PDF copy).
SewCalGal highly recommends this book to anyone interested in learning/improving their free-motion skills. It is packed with 365 amazing quilting designs and is an excellent resource when planning what designs you may want to use on your quilt, as well as learning new designs.
Leah is well known for providing wonderful free tutorials on her blog and you-tube, and she offers all of her books, DVDs and other products for sale on her online store. SewCalGal also highly recommends the Craftsy classes that Leah teaches:
For those lucky enough to be at Spring Market, you'll have a chance to meet Leah and her husband Josh in booth #2349.
For a complete list of sponsors and prizes, as well as links to the monthly linky parties, please click the tab labeled "A Handmade Christmas Challenge". And, for fun, a few monthly challenges, like the linky party this month, will have a winner that is selected at the end of the linky party vs the end of the challenge to win a prize!
While the majority of the 70+ prizes will be given away at the end of this Challenge, before Christmas, last month one of the fabric bundles donated by Hoffman was given away.
SewCalGal wants to recognize and thank all of our sponsors:
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.
Today, I want to share insights on one of our sponsors for this event: Many of you are aware Leah Day Designs. Leah has donated a PDF copy of one of her books as a prize to one lucky winner:365 Free Motion Quilting Designs", by Leah Day (PDF copy).
SewCalGal highly recommends this book to anyone interested in learning/improving their free-motion skills. It is packed with 365 amazing quilting designs and is an excellent resource when planning what designs you may want to use on your quilt, as well as learning new designs.
The lucky winner was Vroomans Quilts who selected bundle #2, with the beautiful collection of Stained Glass Christmas fabrics. And SewCalGal has shipped this lucky winner their prize.
To clarify, bundle #1 and #3 will be awarded to two lucky winners at the end of this challenge, before Christmas. You can make one item and enter any of the linky parties, but the more items you make and more linky parties you enter, the more chances you have to win more prizes.
Time is fleeting by. Soon Christmas will be here. This is a great time to make a handmade gift for Christmas 2014, or make something to decorate your home for the holidays. Simply pledge and make a commitment to make handmade gifts and/or decorations for your home this year! Any size, any design, any handmade gift!
If you are looking for inspirational ideas for making handmade gifts, definitely check out all the prizes that our sponsors have donated as they'd all help you make wonderful gifts for Christmas or to decorate your home for the Holidays. Plus you can view the entries in the monthly challenges/linky parties for inspiration, tips, tutorials and project insights:
January challenge
February challenge
March challenge
April challenge
January challenge
February challenge
March challenge
April challenge
Before you add your entry (a link to this Linky), please be sure you read the rules below.
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 Christmas gift or to decorate your home for the holidays. Please do not enter projects that you giveaway throughout the year, or previous holidays as that doesn't bring you good quilting kharma!
2) You can enter one or more completed projects, 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).
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 Christmas gift or to decorate your home for the holidays. Please do not enter projects that you giveaway throughout the year, or previous holidays as that doesn't bring you good quilting kharma!
2) You can enter one or more completed projects, 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 25th of this month, to give participants plenty of time to enter the challenge this month. If you are not familiar with how to use a linky click here for a tutorial.
Please be sure to read the rules before you add a link to enter the challenge this month.
Don't forget our Challenge #5 Linky Party will be posted on May 15th. You don't have to participate in every monthly challenge, but the more monthly challenges you enter in 2014 the more changes you have to win prizes and the more handmade Christmas items you will have made this year!
There is also an optional email list for this event, that participants may want to sign up for. As, SewCalGal realizes not everyone follows blog posts every day, I will try to send out reminder emails when monthly challenges are released to those that sign up for these email alerts. There may also be additional Holiday theme clipart and related info shared in these emails that are not shared in my blog.
For blogger participants that are interested in posting a badge, I need to work on the code. But you are welcome to take any images from this post and link to the main page for this event.
Let's not forget the spirit of this challenge is to make handmade gifts for Christmas or decorations for the holiday season, throughout the year vs waiting till the holiday rush. 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.
This linky party will be open thru the 25th of this month, to give participants plenty of time to enter the challenge this month. If you are not familiar with how to use a linky click here for a tutorial.
Please be sure to read the rules before you add a link to enter the challenge this month.
Don't forget our Challenge #5 Linky Party will be posted on May 15th. You don't have to participate in every monthly challenge, but the more monthly challenges you enter in 2014 the more changes you have to win prizes and the more handmade Christmas items you will have made this year!
There is also an optional email list for this event, that participants may want to sign up for. As, SewCalGal realizes not everyone follows blog posts every day, I will try to send out reminder emails when monthly challenges are released to those that sign up for these email alerts. There may also be additional Holiday theme clipart and related info shared in these emails that are not shared in my blog.
For blogger participants that are interested in posting a badge, I need to work on the code. But you are welcome to take any images from this post and link to the main page for this event.
Let's not forget the spirit of this challenge is to make handmade gifts for Christmas or decorations for the holiday season, throughout the year vs waiting till the holiday rush. 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.
Really? Did you have to post that Christmas countdown clock? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? LOL! I would love to participate in this. I would love to make some Christmas gifts. I would love to have some extra time to do it. I'm sure I'll at least be inspired by the linkys. And P.S. I love Leah Day. She is awesome! Have a super day!
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