My Crafting Journey throughout 2015

I have seen on several blogs now people's favourite 5 projects of 2015. I started to have a look through mine and there was no way I could choose just 5 cards/projects. There's just so many! So instead I thought I would have a look at my crafting journey from last year.

I am very lucky in that I was on some fabulous design teams last year. Some have finished, some I have chosen to leave for various reasons and others I am still on or have just started. I thought I would share my favourite project from each team, so this post is a little photo heavy!

I joined The Paper Shelter Design team back in April 2014 after I fell in love with these cute images and applied for the design team. Every time Veronica brings a new one out that is my new favourite! LOL My favourite card from last year though is The Fairy of Cookies - just love this image and the vintage style of this card.

I am still the team leader for the Art by MiRan Facebook Challenges, having joined in July 2014, and we have had a fabulous year. We introduced the progressive challenge, which has been a huge success and our team grew from just me to a team of 5 of us now with two new members joining us this month. I love being part of this team and have a great group of ladies working with me! My favourite project of 2015 for this design team, was Rora and Butterfly, which as the image Mi Ran created for the May Progressive Challenge.

I have been on the Lacy Sunshine Challenge team since August 2014, which is a really long time ago now, but I have had so much fun on this team. I love the wide range of images that Heather draws - there is one for every occasion! I still do have a soft spot for the Flower Pot Pretties, although this card using Rory Accepts Her Award is my fave from last year - love the colour combo on this one!

I was incredibly lucky back in November 2014 when I was asked to join the Ching-Chou Kuik Inspiration and Challenge blog design team. I applied for this DT position at the last minute on a whim and was so excited to join the team. I am still part of it and love all the gorgeous girls that Ching-Chou creates each month! My favourite card from last year is this one, a fairly recent one, using Aurora Woods.

I applied for the All Dressed Up Design Team back in January 2015 and am still part of this fabulous team. I have been a big fan of these images for ages and still love every new release! My favourite card for 2015 uses Party Frock.

I joined the In The Pink Challenge blog back in December 2014 after Rizzo aka Christine invited me to join them. As if you haven't guessed already, pink is a favourite colour of mine and I had been playing along with challenges for a little while when she asked me, so it was an easy answer to give! My favourite pink card from 2015 is this one using an image from Helena Reis.

I was asked by Christine Young to join the Paper Nest Dolls Design Team in February 2015 having been a fan of these cute images and joining in the challenges for a while. My favourite card from this design team for 2015 is this one using the adorable Warlock Owen.

In August 2015 I joined the Julia Spiri New Release Design Team. Julia is fairly new on the digi stamp market and it is an honour to be part of this journey with her. I was also very lucky to be asked to submit some cards as part of the design team to Making Cards magazine and had 3 cards published in the January 2016 issue, out now! My favourite card of last year was Birds in Hair.

A while back, Aurora, the DT leader for Alicia Bel, asked me to join the design team. At that time I couldn't as it was the end of the school year and I was just too busy. However, I joined the team later on at the beginning of October 2015. I love these images and the quirky style is just perfect for me. My favourite project was this Hallowe'en decoration using three different witch images. 

The final team I joined last year was in December, although I didn't officially post my first project for Faery Ink until today with the January Facebook challenge. This was the card I made for the DT call using Gabi Holibell.

Design Teams I have left in 2015

I joined the Fussy & Fancy Challenge blog back in December 2013, but left in June 2015. June is always an incredibly busy time of the year for me as a teacher. My work load almost doubles for the month with end of year reports, over 120 assessments to mark and analyse, data collating, meetings about the children and parents evenings etc etc. I decided to step down to give myself a little more time to cope with my full time job. My favourite card from last year for this design team was this one using Spirals by Jeremiah Ketner (I actually won a whole set of these stamps, but haven't used any since I got them! Must get them out of the drawer!)

I applied for the Sketch Saturday Challenge Blog for the second design team I was on. I joined them in June 2013, but left in February 2015, party due to work commitments and partly because a weekly challenge was taking its toll on my crafting time and enjoyment. My favourite card from those two months of last year was this one using Ella Ballerina from Kith and Kin.

Initially I was asked to join Sassy Studio Designs as a guest designer for two months back in February 2015 but I ended up staying on the team for another 6 months terms after those two months finished and left in September 2015 for personal reasons and work commitments! My favourite project from those 8 months was using France Honey.

Slinky Tart was another design team I was on for quite a while. I joined them in June 2014 when they were still The Stamping Chef and then after the new VAT laws came into effect regarding small businesses, Tamara made some changes and changed the company to Slinky Tart. I was with them until June 2015. My favourite project from last year was this one using Illiana.

Carla, the team leader for The Outlawz Friday Colouring Challenge, invited me to join her team in May 2015. We had been on the Sketch Saturday Design Team together, so knew each other fairly well. I always played along with the Friday Colouring Challenge anyway, so decided to give it a go. I left the design team at the end of December 2015. A weekly challenge is just too much for me when I am really busy with work, which was my main reason for leaving this design team. My favourite card from this year's design team work was this one using an image from The East Wind.

In September 2015 Lynette of Sweet Pea Stamps asked me to join their challenge design team and having been a big fan of their digi stamps for a while I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately I wasn't with the team for long before Lynette decided to close the store and the challenge blog due to health reasons. I will definitely miss this store and all the fabulous digis, but I am now stalking those artists I loved! My favourite card from this short DT term was a Hallowe'en one using an image by Elaine Cox.

Phew. If you made it this far, thank you! Thank you for taking the time to look at my cards and for all the lovely comments you have all made over the past year. I have had a blast with my card making and paper crafting this year and have also been lucky enough to guest design on a few other challenge blogs, but I won't bore you with those as well! 

I feel that my colouring, especially is getting better and better and this year I DO intend on getting those colouring classes from Kit & Clowder finished, particularly getting the Create & Learn ones done in the month they come out! I'm still only halfway through June's! 

Hugs and Happy Crafting,