UKS End of Summer Blog Hop

Welcome to my little corner of the world, I am hoping you have come here from the talented Emy and her washi tape jewelry, if not don't worry just pop over to the UKS thread here for a list so you can follow everyone on the blog hop.

I want to talk to you about....

Challenge

A dictionary definition is 

• a call to someone to participate in a competitive situation ie  a task or situation that tests someone’s abilities
• a call to prove or justify something
• or to  invite (someone) to do or say something that one thinks will be difficult or impossible

I love a challenge, especially when it comes to my main hobby, scrapbooking. I only began making pages a few years ago and initially I would never have dreamed of completing a challenge, in fact I did not really join in with UKS until last year when I became part of a team and then started creating layouts for the challenges.I really love them and have only missed a handful since then. As regular readers will know, my new team set the weekly challenge recently which was great fun.......

After making friends online through my hobby I have met several of them in real life and this was my first experience of scrapping with other people.  It gave me the confidence to join a local group (that I found out about on UKS) and recently we had a 14 hour crop, with several challenges.....

I met up with  team mate and friend K in August and set a challenge for us to do together (and anyone else who would like to join us!) just for fun......

There are numerous ways of joining in challenges online, with many sponsors (and other websites) running monthly challenges such as Sarah's Cards monthly sketch challenge.....

(My July Challenge)

Another sponsor who challenges me more than almost anyone else is Shimelle and this month I am challenging myself to join in Learn Something New Every Day.  So far I have taken daily mobile phone pics and written down my 'lesson learned' in a notebook.  I will make up my pages and put them in my album....

made from one of these....

  and this..... (with a few letter stickers)

I am an avid blog follower and will join in whenever possible with blog challenges, even if it just to use up some of my supplies!  Last year for the very first time I joined in with Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt (this years can be found here) Rinda challenges you to find items from a list and take a picture.  I am still snapping away and hope to find the last few things in the next 2 weeks before my time is up.  I hope to make an album of all my summer snaps and this is an example of a page I made from last year.....

Do you ever take part in challenges?  Do you like them? I have tried several things that I wouldn't normally do as part of a challenge, many I have loved and a couple I have hated (I think I am going to take apart the Rainbow coloured page I made recently... one you might never see!) but at least I have tried new things.  I have used up more stash, recorded a few more memories and mostly had fun! 
So, I would like to encourage you to take up a challenge.... this blog hop may be a challenge for you, making some of the fab projects featured on the blog hop may end up becoming a challenge, or joining in with the challenges set by online stores or UKS may be new for you.  

I would like you to consider one last challenge..... join in with UKS if you don't already, it is an amazing community jam packed full of inspiration.  It is free and an amazing resource whatever your style or taste, definitely something for everyone. I would also encourage you to join a team as it is a great way of meeting new people and feeling part of UKS. If you are interested in joining a team we are looking for some new members so if you like to scrap, do challenges and chat, get in touch!

Thanks for reading my blog today and please go onto visit Carole's blog here


Once you have visited every blog on the hop, and commented on each one (except where noted) go to the UKS thread here and post a reply. If there were any blog you were unable to comment on make a comment in your reply of the blogs you missed. Don't forget to use your UKS user name when leaving comments. You can comment until 6AM 10th September, at which point the hop will close.


There are some amazing prizes on offer including....
UKS voucher for sponsor of your choice £25
ATDML (voucher)
Angel Crafts - Embellishment kit
Artistic Stamper (stamps of the winner's choice to a value of £15)
Beanpole Books (book and craft goodies) 
Carole Bryson (Hysteri-Cal) (£10 voucher)
Beautiful Impressions (£5 voucher)
Lovely Tapes - Washi tape specialists (£15 voucher)
Sarah Hurley (£10 voucher)

goodbye, good luck and enjoy the blog hop xxx