We are a papercraft challenge blog offering two challenges each month - a Main Challenge and a Mini Challenge.

Join in and have some creative fun! We have amazing sponsors and there are GREAT prizes to be won.


01 February, 2016

February 2016 Main Challenge
WONDERFUL & SPARKLE

Here we are sharing with you our 2nd Main Challenge reveal already!

We could not be more thrilled at your amazing response to More Than Words in just a little over a month! With over 500 blog followers, almost 1500 followers on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram combined along with more than 150 entries to our January challenges (Main & Mini), we are extremely happy and grateful to be part of such a talented and inspiring community of artists!

We know you all are wondering what our February challenge is, so here goes...

Our Main Challenge is based on a Word Inspiration and a Creative Challenge.
This challenge is open to layouts, canvases and art journal pages only.

Word Inspiration - WONDERFUL
Creative Challenge - SPARKLE

Use the word "WONDERFUL" as inspiration to create your project!
You can chose to use the word somewhere on your project or to simply be inspired by it.  Please explain in your blog post how it inspired you if it not obvious.

Our creative challenge is "SPARKLE".
We want to see projects that sparkle and shine! Add some subtle shimmer to your project or some serious bling - it's up to you. Anything that shines is fine!

VERY IMPORTANT!!!  You have to incorporate both parts of the challenge, that is the word inspiration and the creative challenge, on your project in order to be eligible for a prize.  Remember that our challenge concept is all about a WORD and more (thus our name More Than Words)! :)  When we vote, we specifically look for projects that display BOTH requirements, and not just the creative challenge.  Just look at our DT members' interpretation, as described underneath their project, as example.

Please check out our RULES to make sure that you are eligible for one of our prizes! 
We have kept these rules very simple for you to play along.  One of them is that
 you must post our board image and a link to our blog in your entry post.

Before we get to our DT Reveal, here is one more important announcement...
We are happy to introduce a new addition to our Design Team this month!


"I am Arantzazu! I live in Bilboa, in Northern Spain. I am one of those people who thinks that knowledge does not occupy place so I'm still learning new things in my daily life and in the scrap world! I love to mix styles and am a huge fan of mixed media."  Arantzazu's Blog 

Welcome to the team Arantzazu!!



Arantzazu: "I am very positive and just wanted to capture my optimism in this project.  I know that 2016 is going to be a WONDERFUL year. We are masters of the blank canvas that is our life... and we must paint it as we want it to be! 
I chose lots of gold SPARKLE!"


Valerie: "When I think of the word WONDERFUL, I automatically think of my son. Life is not always easy, but he certainly makes it better and truly full of wonder! I've incorporated the creative challenge SPARKLE in my layout by adding a lot of glitter and shiny embellishments.  


Rachael: "As you can see, I used the word WONDERFUL in my title.  To add SPARKLE to my layout, I have added rhinestones and used sterling glass glitter!"


 Valia: "What shines better than gold? And the contrast of gold against a black background makes it SPARKLE even brighter! I chose to scrap a photo of a ladies' night out. After all, best friends always have the most WONDERFUL time!"


Pam: "This layout is of my WONDERFUL mom. My mother was not only a wonderful person but she gave me a wonderful life.  I photographed my page in -30 degrees celsius Canadian weather, trying to get the sun to set off all the glitter I used, but it doesn't show.  I was inspired by my fellow DT member Di Garling's Smile tutorial and, believe me, the page is full of SPARKLE!"


Nicole: "I absolutely had to create a Winter layout for this challenge. Being Canadian, I have experienced all sides of Winter, and usually the bad outweighs the good! But I have to admit that the best part of this season is being able to take WONDERFUL pictures such as this tree covered in shimmery snow! I have added a lot of Winter Wonderland SPARKLE to my layout using glitter, shimmer paint, silver metal trinkets and several rhinestones."


Mona: "I used the word WONDERFUL as my title. To make my layout shine, I added lots of rhinestones, a shimmery embossed wooden snowflake, glittery kissed flowers and the shimmery die cut word 'SPARKLE'.


Lilibleu: "When I discovered the challenge, I was instantly inspired by the WONDERFUL world of fairies, goblins, elves and other magical creatures who immediately brought me back to my childhood. I used many SPARKLE elements like glitter, microbeads and shimmer to make my layout shine in order to recreate this wonderful world from my imagination!"


 Kareen: "February is the month of love so I chose to work with a photo of my mom and I. I've used a sparkling turquoise paper and some stickles for the SPARKLE creative challenge and the word WONDERFUL as inspiration for my title. White, black and one punch of colour is a always a good combo!"


Helen: "This little girl in the photo is my mother in law, a WONDERFUL woman, as indicated in my journaling, who I love very much!  To incorporate the SPARKLE creative challenge to my project, I used black gesso on my background and lots of glitter to make my page extra shiny.


Julia: "My layout reminisces about childhood, a beautiful and carefree time to which we all sometimes dream to return... where every moment was filled with new emotions.  I used a photo from the 1970s that shows my husband as a little boy with his little girlfriend.  His face is just so full of expression, a WONDERFUL moment captured.  To make my page SPARKLE, I applied texture paste through a stencil and covered it with glitter. I also added dots of Stickles here and there."


Heather: "My three beautiful nieces have just visited us so I had no doubt what my subject matter would be for this challenge. I used the words 'simply WONDERFUL' on my page as that is what they truly are! For my SPARKLE, I added a Metallic Melts to my Dusty Attic chippies.  This is a super sparkly combo that I use a lot."


Elena: "My layout is all about true love and special friendship between two people which is what makes life WONDERFUL! I added lots of glitter and shimmery accent to my page to make it shine and SPARKLE."


Di: "I used the word WONDERFUL in a little quote on the left side of my photo that says 'some kind of wonderful'.  My layout is super SPARKLY although it doesn't really show in the photo. It has sparkles and glitter everywhere!!"

Hoping that all these WONDERFUL creations from our DT
will SPARKLE your creativity and inspire you to play along this month!


All our prizes include international postage!

MAIN CHALLENGE WINNER
$50 USD worth of products from LEMONCRAFT

Here is more information about our 1st place sponsor this month:

"Lemoncraft was born from a passion and desire to fulfill your creative dreams! We are a Polish manufacture of products for all paper craft artists who share our passion for beautiful artistic designs.  In our product selection, you will find a wide range of scrapbooking papers, ribbons, flowers, buttons/badges (flair) as well as other useful items for scrapbooking, card-making, decoupage and many other 
areas of creativity and inspiration!"


Next, 4 runners up will each be awarded a prize valued at $25 USD.

1st RUNNER UP
a prize package from 2 CRAFTY
(image below is for illustration purposes only)


2nd RUNNER UP
a gift certificate from FLYING UNICORN


3rd RUNNER UP
a prize package from 13ARTS


4th RUNNER UP
a prize package from MAJA DESIGN


In addition, we will draw 1 random winner from all eligible entries.

RANDOM WINNER
a gift certificate from LINDY'S STAMP GANG


Because we LOVE giving away prizes, we have added a new one to the mix!

Each month, we will hand pick a mystery winner from all entries received who hasn't made it to our TOP 5, but who has captured our attention someway somehow. We might pick a project due to its original use of a certain product, the cleverest title, most beautiful photo! Who knows what we will be looking for?! That's why we call it our MYSTERY PRIZE!

Sponsorship of this prize every month comes from
a brand new sponsor added to our lineup!
  
MYSTERY WINNER
a prize package from FABRIKA DECORU


And last, but certainly not least, we will randomly award a prize to
1 lucky blog follower who has commented on any of our February BLOG posts.

LUCKY COMMENTER
a $25 USD gift voucher from THE KREATIVE KORNER


To learn more about all our generous sponsors, click on the SPONSORS tab above!

We look forward to seeing your interpretation of our 
February WONDERFUL & SPARKLE challenge!

Link up your project using the LinkyTool in the right sidebar
by February 29th at 11:59 pm EST!!

(Please note that you need to share your entry for our 
main challenge via a blog post to be eligible!
We unfortunately cannot accept entries via Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr or other.)


23 January, 2016

January 2016 Mini Challenge - BE

Hello everyone and welcome to our very first Mini Challenge

Here is our Mini Challenge board for January:



Here's how it works:

The Mini Challenge runs on the last week of each month and is for
cards, tags and ATCs only. (ATCs, or Artist Trading Cards, are small works of art, about 2.5 by 3.5 inches or 64 x 89mm). This challenge requires you to use a specific word on your project. We must see the actual word. You have only one week - until the last day of the month - to enter, so be quick!

Entry for the Mini Challenge is only via our Facebook page 
under the relevant post. 

The winner will receive a $25 voucher from Dusty Attic, 
our fabulous Mini Challenge sponsor.

And just to sweeten the deal, all our prizes 
include free shipping to anywhere in the world!

You can see all our rules under the Rules tab at the top of this blog.

To kick off your inspiration, here is what some of our Design Team created!


Rachael Funnell - Tag


Nicole Doiron - Card


Di Garling - Card


Elena Tretyakova - Tag


Lilibleu - Tag


Pamela Ellis - Tag









Julia Kissel - Card


We hope this inspires you to give the challenge a go!

You have until 11.55pm EST on Sunday the 31st of January to get 
your entries in right HERE so get your crafting on!






16 January, 2016

Special Guest Spotlight on
Helen Tilbury


Every month at More Than Words, we are committed to bringing you
the best inspiration out there, and to do so, we have decided to invite
 the cream of the crop to play along with our Main Challenge
and inspire you with their talent and unique style!


Introducing our very first SPECIAL GUEST...



"Hi! My name is Helen Tilbury & currently I live in Durban, South Africa, although I am currently in the midst of a major relocation to the UK so hope to be there shortly! I am a 40 something mom to 4 gorgeous grown ups (nearly) & 4 purry, furry creatures too. I've been passionate about all things creative my whole life & got into memory art 12 years ago, started my blog 5 years after that, and it's been full steam ahead since then! I have had the pleasure of designing for many teams over the years as well as founding & managing Scrap Around The World until I closed it down last month due to my exciting 2016 plans coming up! However, I am still a loud and proud Prima Marketing Flowers designer & would be until the day I die if that were allowed! I would love for you to keep up with my messy crafting adventures if you like by visiting me on my blog or my social media sites. Thank you so much to More Than Words for inviting me to be your first ever Special Guest!"

Visit Helen here:
BLOG  -  INSTAGRAM  -  FACEBOOK

As you know, all of us from the More Than Words Admin Team
have worked and created alongside Helen at Scrap Around the World.
Helen was an outstanding team leader who has taught us so many useful
tips and skills when it comes to running a successful challenge blog.
It seems very fitting to have her join us on our first month as
our Special Guest.

Here's a reminder of our January Main Challenge
followed by Helen's interpretation!


Here is what Helen has to say about her layout:
"I had such fun creating this layout!  I am NOT a selfie taker at all - I admit to having tried a couple & cringed!!! But my 2 daughters are absolute PROS at it & occasionally they pull me in! Selfies do make for the most hysterically funny & personal images & combining them with personality traits is just pure genius & makes for an amazing challenge. I really did just use the first {flattering} words that came to mind when thinking of my personality - there are many "bad" words to describe me too but those would be for an art journal page instead hahaha!  I kept everything free, easy & boisterous which is the way I am (when I'm in a playful  mood, that is!)"

Huge thanks to Helen for this gorgeous piece of inspiration! 

Now if you're inspired as we are, we hope that you will play along
and show us your Personality & Selfie project!

You have until January 31st to link up!


08 January, 2016

New Followers' Contest WINNERS


As promised, we have WINNERS for you today!



First of all, we were overwhelmed with your positive reaction
to our new challenge blog and we thank each and every one
of you for following More Than Words, whether it be
on the blog, or any of our social media sites!

In just a little over a month, More Than Words
has gathered a tremendous amount of followers,
and we only wish we had prizes to give away to each one of you!

We do have 6 very lucky winners to announce!!
(2 from our blog, 2 from FB, 1 from Pinterest and 1 from Instagram)


Rachel Lowe
you have won Prize #1 donated by Di Garling



Kathy Bradley
you have won Prize #2 donated from Nicole Doiron


Olga Iopukhova
you have won Prize #3 donated by Rachael Funnell


Kim Ewins
you have won Prize #4 donated by Heather McMahon


Joi at RR
you have won Prize #5 donated from Pamela Ellis


Vinita Jain
you have won Prize #6 donated by Valia Katzaki

Congratulations ladies!!


Please send us your shipping address at 
mtwchallenge(at)hotmail(dot)com

Thank you all again for your support!

For more chances to win some fabulous prizes,
we hope that you will play along with our January Challenge.
All details can be found HERE!

We will be back on January 16th for a Special Guest Spotlight
and on the 23rd for our first Mini Challenge reveal.

01 January, 2016

January 2016 Main Challenge
PERSONALITY & SELFIE


It's finally here!
The 1st day of 2016 (HAPPY 2016 EVERYONE!)
and thus the reveal of the first More Than Words Main Challenge.
Our Main Challenge is based on a Word inspiration and a Creative Challenge.
This challenge is open to layouts, canvases and art journal pages only.

What does the word "PERSONALITY" inspire you to create?
You can choose to use the word somewhere on your project or
simply be inspired to create from it.  Please explain in your blog post
how it inspired you, if not already obvious. 

The creative challenge is to use a "SELFIE".
It is as easy as that!  All of the DT have used a selfie of themselves
on their project in order to introduce themselves to you during our very first
 challenge, but for your project, you can use a selfie of yourself
or anyone else (kids, husband, best friend, etc).
Or, if you have no selfie, any photo of you will be fine.



Di: "I was inspired by the "personality" word to list what I feel are my personality traits, the main one being that I am a very happy person so I took a whole bunch of HAPPY selfies (I had to take about 20 to get 2 that I was happy with!!).  I think this layout depicts my personality perfectly."


ELENA TRETYAKOVA

Elena: "My selfie has been taken during a wonderful time at a wedding at the coast.  Being a very happy person overall who loves to have fun, I had an amazing time! A lot of sun, beautiful flowers and good mood inspired my project!"


HEATHER MCMAHON
Heather: "My title, 'I make my own destiny', came about from realizing that I'm happy with my life right now because I have planned and worked hard to achieve what I have. This page has all my fave scrappy things - the teal colours, white background and gorgeous Dusty Attic chippies."


HELEN HAPSI

Helen: "I tried to reveal some aspects of my personality such as being creative, always wanting to discover new things and trying to be true to myself!"


JACQUELINE MOORE
Jacqueline: "The selfie photo I have used for the January challenge is of me at the beach in Margaret River.  To me, this says so much about my personality.  I love the beach, the sun, the heat and I could spend the whole day in it!  I have added shells to my page to represent this and have chosen colours that to me 
feel very calming and laid back."


Julia: "This is my 'Summer Memory' layout, or 'How I learned to do a selfie!'  Bright greens, warm sun and blooming garden fragrances inspired me to use
such a bright palette, as bright as my personality!"


KAREEN BH
Kareen: "I'm always saying that I have 2 personalities. Today, I show you in this layout, my bubbly personality.  I love selfies!  I'm always taking one so this part was a piece of cake for me.  I have created a colourful background with texture to represent my way of making things in life more magical, more wonderful and more colourful!  I'm always dreaming about everything.  
I also added flowers and bright pink because I'm a real Princess! haha"


Lilibleu: "The picture has been taken just after I moved to my new home.  I took it especially for this challenge since I pretty much never take any selfies.  I think it represents me quite well, for it allows the viewer to get a catch of my enjoyment of life as well as my quiet and gentle nature."


MONA PENDLETON
Mona:  "I was inspired by the word 'personality' to share my adventurous side!  I love the great outdoors so I took this selfie while on a mountain hike,
getting my daily dose of nature and exercise."


NICOLE DOIRON
Nicole: "I had so much fun creating this layout using a selfie I took during a Summer stroll in the woods a couple years back.  I used several kraft stickers with different adjectives that describe a few aspects of my personality and what I strive to be every day of my life.  Considerate, honest, humble... that sums me up pretty well!"


Pamela: "I really dislike having my photo taken, let alone selfies!  I am very insecure about my looks so I tend to avoid photos all together or fade into the background if I can.  My page reflects my character.  I used bold papers, a side of me that is rarely seen but exists, and then whitewashed them to make them more subtle which is more like the person I am in public.  The quote is something that I am striving for everyday to live my life the way I imagined it should be, or will be."


RACHAEL FUNNELL
Rachael: "I'm a REAL homebody so for this 'selfie' challenge, I have used this photo that I took where I love to be... my home!  The quote by Katy Perry is one of the many ways to describe my personality."


VALERIE OUELLET
Valerie: "I don't take selfies often, but I used the idea behind the word 'personality' to have a retrospection about my scrapbooking inspiration and my life.  I'm a simple girl with a simple life  who loves watercolor, doodling and bright colours."


Valia: "I probably am the last dinosaur on this planet who doesn't take selfies!  I had to take 50 or more to get one partly right.  I may look wild because of the platinum pixie hair and the tattoos, but there is a softer side in me, which I strive to conceal.  Those who know me are aware of its existence.  So I go wild with graphite paste and scissors, but I am also a sensitive girl with pink, glitter, 
and what else? Prima flowers!"


We hope that all these wonderful creations from our DT will inspire you to play along!

Be sure to check out our RULES
to make sure that you are eligible to win one of our monthly prizes.



All our prizes include postage!

MAIN CHALLENGE WINNER
a $50 USD store credit from DUSTY ATTIC


Here is more information about our 1st place sponsor this month:

"The Dusty Attic is an Australian owned and operated laser cutting business, which designs and manufactures craft items and embellishments.  Founded in July 2009 and located in Perth, Western Australia, we are proud to be able to make our mark on the scrapbooking and craft industry with our great range of products.  We are continually designing so we can bring our customers new and fresh designs.  We love seeing what beautiful creations our customers have made with our products."


Next, 4 runners-up will each be awarded a prize valued at $25 USD.

1st RUNNER-UP
this prize package from COLOUR BLAST
(exactly as shown below)



2nd RUNNER-UP
this prize package from COUTURE CREATIONS
(exactly as shown below)



3rd RUNNER-UP
a gift certificate from THE SCRAPBOOK DIARIES



4th RUNNER-UP
a prize package from 7 DOTS STUDIO
(image below is for illustration purposes only)



In addition, we will draw 1 random winner from all eligible entries.

RANDOM WINNER
a prize package from STUDIO 75



And last, but certainly not least, we will randomly award a prize to
1 lucky blog follower who has commented on any of our January blog posts.
There is no need to participate in our challenge to be eligible for this prize,
but you do need to be a follower and leave us some comment love.

LUCKY COMMENTER
this prize package from GRAPHIC 45
(exactly as shown below)


To learn more about all our wonderful sponsors,
click on the SPONSORS tab above!

We cannot wait to see your interpretation of our
January PERSONALITY & SELFIE challenge!

Link up your project using the LinkyTool in the right sidebar
by January 31st at 11:59 pm EST!!

Come back in a week when we reveal the winners of our
New Followers' Contest!  Be sure to follow if you haven't already!!