Cards for Men - Challenge 25 - "Blog Hop"- Two Challenges "Card and Gift"

This post will stay at the top till the 13th December, to find more recent posts please scroll down.
Wow, can you believe it's been a year of challenges over at Cards for Men? To celebrate we have lots going on with tons of prizes available, I did promise you a fortnight ago some surprises and here they are. There are two challenges this time, both with a Christmas theme. You can make a card or a present or both, it's up to you. We'll draw a random winner from each category and top 3 as usual. You can get all the details and lots more ideas from the Design Team click here at Cards for Men. and this is where you need to start the bloghop.
Here's my DT card and gift which were made with a lot of help from my dear hubby Ian.

The card was created using the Umount set of stamps by Sheena, and coloured with my copic pens, the background was created using a clock stamp and several shades of glimmer mists, these were sprayed onto white card and the clock stamp was then stamped over it randomly with versafine ink, not that its to clear in the photo, sorry about that. The strip down the middle has punched out trains along the edges, and the two sentiments are from Pink Gem, Janet has some fabulous ticket stamps and I felt these were the most appropriate.
The calendar stand was created using a template sent to me by a dear blogging friend Christine and with my hubbys help, he actually built it for me from some wood he bought locally, I then used some clear varnish to seal it. The actual calendar is of twelve photos I found on the internet and luckily they are of the local Steam Restoration Society that my hubby is volunateering to help, so its a very appropriate Christmas present for him with the card, the calendar months have been printed onto acetate and stuck on the photos.
As an extra surprise to celebrate this special 1st Anniversary each of us along the way are giving away a special prize and I have 4 fabulous digi images from Meljens to give away and the lucky winner will be chosen from one of the comments that are left on my own blog.

And this is what my sponser Melissa says about herself:-

 Meljen's Designs is a lovely stamp company owned and illustrated by Melissa Jenkins. She illustrates whimsical rubber and digital images inspired by her kids and family. Meljen's Designs has new releases along with a new challenge every Thursday, freebies every Monday and a Guest Designer each month at the Meljen's Designs Blog. Please visit the Meljen's Designs line of stamps at the WHIMSY STAMPS STORE to browse and enjoy Melissa's wonderful images!

So dont forget to be in with a chance of winning these fabulous digi stamps you must leave a comment at the end of my blog, a winner will then be chosen at random on the 20th December.

If you have been following the list of blogs from the begining you should have arrived at my blog from my fellow DT member:-

Viv

                                                                    

and at each of the stops along the way you will have found a word to collect to make a festive phrase, and my word is "Christmas"  and by the time you arrived here you should have collected all 11 words, so now all you have to do is work out the phrase and leave it in the comments back at Cards for Men which is your next stop. If you have at any time missed or lost your way, the best thing is go back to "Cards for Men" and start again. The blog hop will run until midnight on 19th December 2010 and a winner will be chosen on 20th December. I want to wish you all Good Luck and hope youve enjoyed taking part in our first bloghop.