Announcing our March 2022 Winners

 Hello everyone and a big thank you to all who entered our March challenges!

Before we announce the winners for this month, we wanted to remind everyone that we have suspended prizes due to the current world situation.  We hope to resume prizes as soon as the conflict has ceased and peace has been resumed. 

Now on to our winners for March.  We enjoyed seeing all of your entries and of course we also enjoyed creating projects for our challenges!  Thank you also to the Design Team for all of your inspiration.  Now let's see who our winners are...

 

>>MAIN CHALLENGE WINNERS<<

We now have THREE winners for the Main Challenge.  In addition, we would like to invite our Main challenge winners to be Guest Designers in a future challenge.  Please see the end of the post for more details.

Thank you all for entering your wonderful projects!

Regional Challenge Winner - Europe 

Bea Munoz - Spain

Regional Challenge Winner - North America

 

Rachel Martin - Canada

Regional Challenge Winner - Australasia

Rox Boyce - Australia

>>MINI CHALLENGE WINNERS<<

This month we only have one winner and no runners up due to having only five entries this time.  We really enjoyed seeing all of your entries this month!

As this challenge is now held in our Facebook Group, the links below will take you to the group, if you wish to view more photos.

Thank you all for entering your wonderful mini projects this month!

Mini Challenge Winner

Vinita Jain - India

Mini Challenge Runners-Up

No runners up due to small number of entries.

Congratulations to all our winners

Congrats once again to all our winners and thank you to everyone who entered the challenge. We encourage all merit winners and runners-up to grab your badges from this post and proudly display it on your blog or social media. 

Share Your Winnings

SHARE YOUR UNBOXING - We would love to see your unboxing photos or videos! Share with us using the hashtags #MTWPrizeWinner and 

#MTWPrizeUnboxing on Instagram when you receive your prize or by tagging the sponsor plus More Than Words Challenges on Facebook.

SHARE WHAT YOU MAKE - We'd also love to see what you make using your prize products, so please show us by using the hashtags #MTWPrizeWinner  and #MTWPrizeWinnerMake on Instagram and Facebook.

PERMISSION TO SHARE PHOTOS - We'd love to share your good news so please also tag your photos with #MTWShare for permission to be featured on More Than Words' social media.

*** Special Guest Designer ***

We would like to invite all of this month's winners to be Guest Designers in a future challenge.  If you are interested, please leave a comment below with your contact details and we will get in touch (your details are safe as the comment will not be published and will be deleted later).  Alternately, send us a message us via More Than Words Facebook Page

Special Guest Spotlight on DANA TATAR

  This month, we are very pleased to introduce you to Dana Tatar, one of our fabulous Guest Designers for this month (and a former team member!)  Dana was one of our October winners who are all featured this month.

We invite you to get to know Dana a little better through her interview below.  Please also visit her social links which are listed in her Artist Bio.

Artist Bio 

Hi friends! I'm so excited to be the Guest Designer this month! I currently live in the USA with my husband and two teenage children. I started paper crafting about 15 years ago and have an eclectic style in terms of what and how I design. I love to mix and match products to keep things interesting. I'm a tactile crafter and I enjoy playing with texture and layers. I also like to add a touch of whimsy to my projects. I frequently find inspiration in music, poetry, and pop culture. When I'm not creating art, I enjoy baking, reading, listening to music, and spending time outside with my family and basset hound Peach.

Social Media Links:

Blog 

Facebook

Instagram

Q & A with Dana

How long have you been art journaling?

 I have been creating in art journals of various sizes for about 6 years. I started my journey in art journaling on a previous design team where artists mailed their journals to each other, adding original pieces of art, and then mailing them on to the next recipient. It was so fun and inspiring to see the work of other artists in person, and to receive a full journal with art from around the world.

What is your favourite art journaling supply or product?  

I prefer a handmade art journal with a variety of different pages. The journal I created in for this challenge is made up of envelopes, junk mail, book pages, and scraps of other art projects.

Are you inspired by a particular artist or artists, if so who? 

 I'm not inspired by a particular artist. When I want to try a new technique or style of art journaling, I look for examples of that art to fit my needs. I'm thankful that so many artists share their work.

What is your favourite colour palette to use? 

I like to use a lot of color in my art. I usually include add a pop of bright orange or teal to my work.

Why do you enter art challenges?  

I love a good challenge! I tend to get stuck in certain creative lanes and designing for a specific challenge makes the creative process fresh and exciting. Challenges are a fun way to try something different that I may not have created otherwise. 

Dana's Interpretation of our April Main Challenge

I have had these colorful VINTAGE die-cuts in my stash for years and if feels great to finally use them on an art journal page! I pieced several designs together to create a COLLAGE image for my journal. Once the die-cuts were secured to the page, I added glitter for a touch of sparkle. I'm trying to visualize Spring and am hoping that it arrives soon!

Thanks for sharing your beautiful journal spread with us Dana!  We hope that Dana's beautiful work inspires you to enter the Main Challenge this month.

Here's a reminder of our current Main Challenge:

Word Inspiration - VINTAGE

Creative Challenge - ADD COLLAGE

Special Guest Spotlight on HELEN HOLLINGER

  This month, we are very pleased to introduce you to Helen Hollinger, one of our fabulous Guest Designers for this month!  Helen was one of our October winners who are all featured this month.

We invite you to get to know Helen a little better through her interview below.  Please also visit her social links which are listed in her Artist Bio.

Artist Bio 

Hi! I'm Helen Hollinger and am honoured to be a Guest Designer for More Than Words!  Thank you ladies! A bit about myself:  I live in Cambridge, Ontario with my hubby of 30+ years! We have 2 grown sons, aged 31 and 27! I am a retired RN and spend my time getting messy in my art journals and mixed media projects! I started playing with paper years ago when my sons were babies, scrapbooking their lives! After they realized that I took too many photos of them as teenagers and told me to stop scrapbooking them, I started art journaling! That was almost 10 years ago and I haven't looked back!  I love snarkiness in my art journaling and tend to keep things simple. As long as I can get messy and inky I am happy! I do hope I can inspire you to create!

My Instagram account 

My Facebook page 

My blog  

Q & A with Helen

How long have you been art journaling?

10 years.

What is your favourite art journaling supply or product?  

Hard to pick just one as I LOVE so many, but the one product (other than gesso and paints) I couldn't live without are stencils!

Are you inspired by a particular artist or artists, if so who? 

When I first started, France Papillon had how to videos out and after watching those, I couldn't stop. In fact, I was on her first Design Team she had. Today, I have many artists I follow and am inspired by.

What is your favourite colour palette to use? 

I love blues, turquoises, greys, black and white. 

Why do you enter art challenges?  

I love the inspiration I get from the challenges and the design teams. It sometimes it makes me think outside of my box and allows my creativity to try new techniques or look at things a different way. I have a hard time just "playing", and find that having a challenge keeps me creating. 

Helen's Interpretation of our April Main Challenge

I have to admit, I have a hard time with collage but I did it! I first layered down some torn tissue papers I had using Matte Medium. I then put a wash of white gesso over the whole area, followed by some quinacridone nickel azo gold and titan buff acrylic paint. I like these colours for vintage projects, they give you that worn old look on papers. I then used ground espresso distress ink over the entire area to catch the wrinkles in the tissue underneath. I added some stitching and some french knots because to me, vintage reminds me of this. As does my canvas page I used in my journal. To finish it off, I added a little girl, some washi tape and a quote incorporating the word Vintage. 

Thanks for sharing your beautiful journal spread with us Helen!  We hope that Helen's beautiful work inspires you to enter the Main Challenge this month.

Here's a reminder of our current Main Challenge:

Word Inspiration - VINTAGE

Creative Challenge - ADD COLLAGE

Special Guest Spotlight on RACHEL DUTKO

  This month, we are very pleased to introduce you to Rachel Dutko, one of our fabulous Guest Designers for this month!  Rachel was one of our October winners who are all featured this month.

We invite you to get to know Rachel a little better through her interview below.  Please also visit her social links which are listed in her Artist Bio.

Artist Bio 

Hi! My name is Rachel Dutko and I live in Adelaide, Australia with my husband and our 2 young boys. I love using mixed media, texture, and learning new creative techniques and growing as an artist. I enjoy creating collage and layering textures, mostly in vintage or grungy styles.

I mostly create 12x12 layouts, but I also like to create cards, tags, art journal pages, canvasses and OTP projects.

Facebook 

Instagram

Q & A with Rachel

How long have you been creating art?

I have been creating for about 8 years.

What is your favourite art supply or product?  

I enjoy collage, layering different textures and sourcing vintage papers so I go through a lot of gel medium.

Are you inspired by a particular artist or artists, if so who? 

I am inspired by artists such as Lisa Oxley, Dina Wakley and Dee Dee Catron.

What is your favourite colour palette to use? 

I enjoy creating grungy pieces, using grungy black, brown, teal and gold..

Why do you enter art challenges?  

A blank page is always so daunting, so I enjoy art challenges for the inspirational prompts and the spark of inspiration.

Rachel's Interpretation of our April Mini Challenge

The prompt of 'treasure' led me to think about the things we like to collect and hold on to. My tag reminds me of the collections at my local museum and why its important to preserve things that would otherwise be lost forever.  My background is created from papers and tissue from Art Stacks, as well as stamping and heat embossing.  I've added an assemblage of fabric, paper, die-cuts, chipboard and images.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful tag with us Rachel!  We hope that Rachel's beautiful work inspires you to enter the Mini Challenge this month.

Here's a reminder of our current Mini Challenge:

April 2022 Mini Challenge - TREASURE

 Hello everyone and welcome to our April Mini Challenge where we are asking you to use the word TREASURE on your mini projects.   

PLEASE NOTE:  We have relocated our mini challenge to our new Art Cafe Facebook Group where you can now enter your project in the relevant album.   Please make sure to add your project to the album so that we don't miss it when it comes to picking our winners!  Also please remember to add your country to your entry!
As previously mentioned in the Art Café Facebook Group, we have suspended all prizes until further notice due to the current world situation but hope that you will continue to be inspired by our challenges.

SHARON FRITCHMAN

Visit Sharon:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - PINTEREST - INSTAGRAM

⬷⤐

HEATHER MCMAHON

Visit Heather:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - PINTEREST - INSTAGRAM

⬷⤐


ELLE - EOTC

 

Visit Elle:  BLOG - FACEBOOK -  INSTAGRAM

⬷⤐

How to enter

The Mini Challenge runs in our Facebook group from today until the end of the month.

Enter your cards, tags, ATCs and postcards ONLY!

You MUST include the challenge word on your project! 

*ATCs. or Artist Trading Cards, are small works of art,

about 2.5 by 3.5 inches or 64 x 89 mm.

Please remember to add your country to your entry!

You have two weeks - until the last day of the month - to enter, so be quick!

Please read the rules before entering.

All prizes are suspended until further notice.

Special Guest Designer

One participant, handpicked by our Admin team, may be invited to be our Special Guest Designer.

You have two weeks to enter below

We hope that you feel inspired by our challenge word and our DT inspiration this month and look forward to seeing your Mini Challenge projects!

Entry for the Mini Challenge is NOW held in our Facebook group!

Join our Facebook Group

Our Facebook group is now open!  Just click on the image below or visit our Facebook page to join.

Feedburner Subscribe by Email

Google has made the decision to retire this feature, and so the Feedburner subscribe by email option is going away.  If you are already subscribing to our blog updates by email, don't worry as we have moved everything to a new service, so you won't miss any updates!  If you are not currently receiving our blog updates by email and you would like to, please click on the link below, to make that happen.   

To follow us on other social media, please visit the links at the top right of the page.

Engage with us!

Tell us what you think in the comments below!  Are you entering the challenge? 

Special Guest Spotlight on HEIDI MATTESSICH

 This month, we are very pleased to introduce you to Heidi Mattessich, one of our fabulous Guest Designers for this month!  Heidi was one of our October winners who are all featured this month.

We invite you to get to know Heidi a little better through her interview below.  Please also visit her social links which are listed in her Artist Bio.

Artist Bio 

Hi guys! 

My name is Heidi Mattessich and only recently have I realized that I want to be an artist when I grow up, though I should have seen this coming many years ago. It started with a scrapbook that I received as a gift which became a hobby soon after I had my first child. I became involved in the parent-run art program at my kids’ elementary school and had just as much fun learning about the art as I did teaching the projects to the kids.

After we moved to Florida, I really missed having art in my life.  But my kids would share what they learned in art class at school with me and then my youngest started keeping an art journal for their drawing.  This inspired me to start getting back into art.  I volunteered at the new school and brought more art into the classroom which I incorporated around what they were learning.  I have since been developing my love and my own practice of mixed media art with a focus on art journaling, scrapbooking and mixed media tags, and I recently was chosen for the first time as a design team member at Miniature Luxuries and Papers.  I am very honored to be asked to be a Guest Designer for this month at More Than Words Challenge and hope you like my journal page!

Social Media links:

IG: @heidimattessich

YouTube: Art with Heidi

Facebook: Heidi Mattessich

Q & A with Heidi

How long have you been art journaling?

I started art journaling about 5 years ago.  My youngest is an amazing artist and is always drawing in their journal.  I started my journaling with trying to learn how to draw and would search for tutorials on Pinterest and YouTube.  This branched into Facebook and then in Instagram which is how I discovered More Than Words.

What is your favourite art journaling supply or product?  

This is a very general answer, but color…I love using either watercolor paints, sprays or inks depending on the mood of the journal page

Are you inspired by a particular artist or artists, if so who? 

Marta Lapkowska, Laly Mille, and Gwen Lafleur.  I follow these talented ladies on their social accounts and have learned a lot from them.

What is your favourite colour palette to use? 

This depends on my mood Emoji.  I really like to start with a neutral background and build up the main image with color.  I am partial to blues and pinks.

Why do you enter art challenges?  

Art challenges provide me such inspiration from the challenge team members, give me a theme to focus on and a deadline to finish by. 

Heidi's Interpretation of our April Main Challenge

The first thing that caught my attention was the word Vintage.  It got me thinking about silhouettes and retro vogue styles and then I landed on the vision of having a fancy lady looking out the window.  The collage part of this challenge was easy for me because I often use this technique for my journal backgrounds.  For this spread I used thin collage paper and glued them down overlapping one another.  Then I thought paper dolls could be considered a type of collage and created the lady like a paper doll.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful journal spread with us Heidi!  We hope that Heidi's beautiful work inspires you to enter the Main Challenge this month. 

Here's a reminder of our current Main Challenge:

Word Inspiration - VINTAGE

Creative Challenge - ADD COLLAGE

April 2022 Main Challenge - Vintage & Collage - Design Team Inspiration

 Hello everyone, and welcome to our April Main Challenge!   

All our Main Challenges are now ART JOURNAL Challenges!  

Our challenge has two parts, please use both prompts to inspire you:

Word Inspiration:  VINTAGE
Creative Challenge:  COLLAGE

This month our challenge board image is provided by our DT Member Elle/EOTC - thanks Elle!

As previously mentioned in the Art Café Facebook Group, we have suspended all prizes until further notice due to the current world situation.

Helpful Tips For The Challenge

We would like you to be inspired by both parts of our challenge - our word inspiration VINTAGE and our creative challenge - ADD COLLAGE. We can't wait to see what you do!

 

SHARON FRITCHMAN

Sharon says:  I knew that I would enjoy making my art journal page for this month's theme because I love anything VINTAGE!  My COLLAGE was made from a mix of Blue Fern Studios' cardstock and ArtStacks tissue paper that I had in my stash.

Visit Sharon:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - PINTEREST - INSTAGRAM

⬷⤐

HEATHER MCMAHON

Heather says:  Can you spot my COLLAGE? I used VINTAGE papers to collage the butterfly shape then printed the butterfly over the top.

I hope you can join in the fun this month!

Visit Heather:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - PINTEREST - INSTAGRAM


⬷⤐

LISA OXLEY

Lisa says:  Vintage is not really my happy place creatively, but I'm quite happy with the results.  Using a collection of collage goodies for the back and foreground for this one. YEAH BABY, listen up, ART IS EVERYWHERE.

Visit Lisa:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - INSTAGRAM - YOUTUBE


⬷⤐
 

YULIA POPKOVA

Yulia says:  Here is my vintage and collage for the April challenge. 

Visit Yulia:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - PINTEREST - INSTAGRAM


⬷⤐

ELLE - EOTC

Elle says:  My vintage/collage page for this month. I used collage across the entire spread, since my craft space is packed up, I used whatever I could find but it all came together just the same.  I used some of my favourite supplies including a stabilo-all pencil and some pink and blue neocolours. Then I added some journalling and some white splatters on top of the mixture of collage papers. 

Visit Elle:  BLOG - FACEBOOK -  INSTAGRAM


⬷⤐

KAT PALECZNY

Kat says:  COLLAGE is king this month, my interpretation is to use pieces of paper for the background. I created a VINTAGE style artjournal that inspires you to strive for success.  I hope you will join in the fun!

Visit Kat:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - INSTAGRAM - YOUTUBE


⬷⤐

SARAH DORGERE

Sarah says:  at the moment I am very VINTAGE in my art journal. that's why I loved doing this challenge. I made more COLLAGE of paper to work the background as well as put some pieces of masking tape. I hope my page inspires you.

Visit Sarah:  BLOG - FACEBOOK - PINTEREST - INSTAGRAM - YOUTUBE


⬷⤐

  

This year we are continuing with a Regional Prize structure, whereby there will be multiple Main Challenge Winners.  The number of Winners/Prizes for each Region is dependent on the number of Sponsors for that Region.  Some of our Sponsors remain as International Sponsors but many are now Region specific. It is now more important than ever that you add your NAME and COUNTRY to your Inlinkz and Art Cafe group entries!  

As previously mentioned in the Art Café Facebook Group, we have suspended all prizes until further notice due to the current world situation.

Our Fabulous Sponsors this year include:

Special Guest Designer

One or more participants, handpicked by our Admin team, may be invited to be our Special Guest Designers.

Feedburner Subscribe by Email

Google has made the decision to retire this feature, and so the Feedburner subscribe by email option is going away.  If you are already subscribing to our blog updates by email, don't worry as we have moved everything to a new service, so you won't miss any updates!  If you are not currently receiving our blog updates by email and you would like to, please click on the link below, to make that happen.   

To follow us on other social media, please visit the links at the top right of the page.

Engage with us!

Tell us what you think in the comments below!  Please leave your comments at the end of this post.  

Are you entering the challenge?  

Challenge closes on the last day of the month at 11:59 pm EST.  You can join the challenge using the inlinkz below OR in our Facebook Group, using the April Main Challenge Album!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter