On the 4th day of Christmas

Welcome to the weekend! Hope your first December weekend isn't going to be too busy with shopping for the season and maybe you can fit some quality crafting time in. Be sure to check out our first three days of prompts for the holidays as well as today's inspiration. Have you blogged your ChickenSoup creations? or maybe posted a link on Facebook or twitter? If you have leave a comment on this post and we will pick a winner tomorrow to win a little something!

On the 4th day of Christmas we bring you, not 4 calling birds, but HOLLY & IVY! How will today's recipe inspire your next crafting project.
Our guest designer for today is the lovely Karen Leahy (better known as Scrapdolly) who brings us this beautiful digital layout. You can see more of her work on her blog and Karen will be joining us again in the next few days with another digital inspiration.

Ann brings us an ATC for her Holly & Ivy inspiration (though it is her 5th day of Christmas card for her 7 Gypsies printers tray which will be featured on Created by ATDML over the weekend)


Andrea made this MWAH! beautiful card


Christine brings is a fabulous handmade holly wreath.


And lastly for today, but by no means least, is this lovely landscape card from Mandy.


Have a crafty Saturday, and we look forward to seeing you back again tomorrow for the 5th day of Christmas here in the SOUP bowl!

On the 3rd Day of Christmas

Brrr, it sure is chilly outside today, so why not stay indoors and craft along with ChickenSoup on day three of our advent inspiration. Have you played along with our first two recipes for December as yet? Worry not if you haven't as we will bring you a recipe a day from Dec 1st through to Dec 12th and you then have until January 6th 2011 to share your creations using the link button at the base of each days posting. We will be doing some random giveaways through the duration of our festivities so be sure to tell your crafting friends, spread the word, post on your blogs and who knows when we will be making a random prize donation?

So what do we have for you for day 3?? REAL or FAKE? You've got to love a CHRISTMAS TREE and one of the team found this lovely image whilst browsing the web, aren't they adorable?



The team were inspired by this image and the whole Christmas tree theme in many different ways.

Turning the cone shape on it's head Kate created this lovely festive piece.


Louise finds a cute tree patterned paper to use on her card


Fitting both yesterdays card challenge and todays tree challenge Lousette made this lovely card.

Mel had great fun decorating her cone shapes for the season.


Mandy created this stunning tree inspired home decor item

We can't wait to see your Christmas tree projects!

On the 2nd Day of Christmas

Ho! Ho! Ho! and here we go again! Welcome back to day two of our advent inspiration here at ChickenSoup. We will bring you a recipe a day from Dec 1st through to Dec 12th and you then have until January 6th 2011 to share your creations using the link button at the base of each days posting. We will be doing some random giveaways through the duration of our festivities so be sure to tell your crafting friends, spread the word, post on your blogs and who knows when we will be making a random prize donation?

So what do we have for you for day 2?? How about CHRISTMAS CARDS and today we welcome Alana Harrod as our guest designer who created not one but two projects inspired by our Christmas Card recipe.

Will you create a card for this challenge, some gift tags inspired by the colours of the image or maybe a way to display your cards. Be sure to share with us using the link at the end of this post.


These beautiful projects were created by Alana


A pair of fun cards from Clare using Stamping up products


A card by Lousette perfectly reflecting our wintery spell here in the UK this week!


A lovely card from Kate inspired by the tree display in the recipe

And last up from our designers today - a layered card from Ann

Have you made any handmade cards this year? If you have share them with us for this challenge! And as a handy reference if you are posting airmail cards from the UK this holiday season - here are your recommended posting dates (as taken from the Royal Mail website)

Monday 6th December 2010
South & Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Far East (including Japan), Australia and New Zealand

Friday 10th December 2010
Eastern Europe, USA and Canada

Monday 13th December 2010
Western Europe

See you back here tomorrow, until then, stay warm and crafty!

On the first day of Christmas...

Ho! Ho! Ho! and here we go! Are you ready to play along with 12 consecutive days of festive inspiration? ChickenSoup will bring you a recipe a day from Dec 1st through to Dec 12th and you then have until January 6th 2011 to share your creations using the link button at the base of each days posting. We will be doing some random giveaways through the duration of our festivities so be sure to tell your crafting friends, spread the word, post on your blogs and who knows when we will be making a random prize donation? We have several guest designers along with our resident SOUPer cooks all set to inspire your nest festive project.

So let's get this party started...day 1, and we bring you ADVENT as your inspiration.

And here are the designers projects inspired by either the concept of ADVENT or the image above.
A lovely card by Kate

An advent countdown planner/clipboard from Ann

A set of gift tags by Annette

A Set of Advent sweetie pouches by Clare

An Advent layout by our guest designer for today Jackie Pocock.
Thanks for joining us today on our 1st day of advent - we hope to see you again tomorrow!

Not long now til our 12 days of Christmas

Just a quick reminder to you all that we will be hosting our 12-days of Christmas inspiration here at ChickenSoup in just 2 days time!

Join us December 1st for your first festive inspirational recipe - ADVENT!

In the meantime you still have today and tomorrow to complete your November recipe challenge for a chance to win with Sarah's Cards. We haven't forgotten that we've yet to annouce October's winner - we'll do that tomorrow!!