The Challenge (and why we ♥ Papercraft Inspirations)

So, we wanted to find a special way for you to join in our weekend of celebrating – something practical and creative to sit alongside all the inspiration and eye-candy. Rather than setting a general ‘make something and post us a link’ challenge, we were after specifics. It took a little head-scratching, but this is what we came up with.

The Copy+Paste party printables are free for you to download and use as many times as you like. It’s a bit like a going-home party bag or a wedding favour, but with added competitive goodness. The built-in C+P-ness of the download comes from the combination of my drawings with patterns from Julie’s fabulous 365: Chasing Patterns project. If you want even more of the patterns, you can find and avail yourself of them here in her beautifully organised Flickr set.

The printables themselves consist of two sheets filled with colourful, patterned images – including cake, party hats, balloons and a mix-tape – and two sheets of the same images in plain old black and white. Your challenge for the weekend is to download and then create something using as many or as few of the printable images as you like. Which of them you use and how is entirely up to you. Make a card, embellish a scrapbook layout, try some embroidery, print onto shrink plastic, use to decorate a mini-book – whatever your brilliant, creative brain dreams up!

Once you’ve made it, take a picture, and post either to our Flickr group, or to your blog or online gallery if you don’t have a Flickr account. Leave us a link in the comments below so we know where to find it, and then sit back and cross your fingers very tightly.

Why? Because we have an utterly marvellous prize for one lucky weekend-challenge winner.

Over the next couple of months, both Julie and I have projects lined up to appear in Papercraft Inspirations, and I think it would be safe to say that we’ve both enjoyed writing for the magazine every bit as much as we enjoy reading it. Which is why we were doubly thrilled when editor-extraordinaire, Jenny Dixon, offered to sponsor our weekend challenge. The challenge winner will receive a year’s free subscription to Papercraft Inspirations which, I might have already mentioned is pretty spectacularly, utterly marvellous. Jenny and PI, we take our party hats off to you!

Ready to take up the challenge? You can download the printable sheets by clicking the links below and, although we’d love for you to join in over the course of the weekend, we’re being generous and giving you a whole week to put your entry together. Just make sure you post pictures in the Flickr group, or leave a comment and link below by 23:00 [BST] on Sunday 16th May.

If you need any extra tips, Julie's first Papercraft Inspirations feature, all about scrapbooking for card-makers, is in the issue which goes on sale this coming Monday, and it's almost as spectacular as our PI prize.

[Download printable page 1]

[Download printable page 2]

[Download printable page 3]

[Download printable page 4]

Now we are One

Edited to add: Deadline for entries is now extended until 17:00 [GMT] on Monday 26th April ... you've got no excuses now ... :D

The Copy + Paste Project is almost one.

Not in the Zen sense of 'oneness' ... although we're working on it .... no, it's just that in less than a month's time the Copy + Paste blog will be a year old. Which we considered a cause for celebration.

And celebrate we shall!

There are already plans afoot to treat you to a full weekend of new projects, giveaways and a wide range of amazing guests but we've saved a special place ... for two of you.

We'd like one of our blog followers/commenters and one of @CopyPasteTweet's Twitter followers to contribute a guest post to our party during the weekend of May 7/8/9.

We don't want to give anything away just yet, but if you're chosen as a guest you will find yourself nestled happily between some seriously accomplished contributors. So, to be rubbing virtual shoulders with people whose acceptance of our invitatation to participate, caused us to go weak at the knees, you need to...

*Copy*: We'd like you to copy [ie: take inspiration from] either this quotation:

"No party is any fun unless seasoned with folly".

~ Desiderius Erasmus

Or this illustration: [We thought that between them we'd covered a nice cultural range!]

*Paste*: You should then paste the quote or illustration in any which way you see fit. Any. Which. Way.

Your response can be a photograph, a sentence, a poem, a painting, layout, card, expressive dance movement ... anything. We're not judging you on your skills [especially not in the expressive dance category], but rather on your enthusiasm for filling our vacant guest spot.

How to share your response:

**Applications via the blog must be either:

• within a comment on this post or
• linked to from a comment on this post.

**Applications via Twitter must be:

• from people following @copypastetweet and
• in a tweet beginning @copypastetweet or
• linked to from a tweet beginning @copypastetweet

You can apply via both the blog AND Twitter and you can make as many applications as you choose.

You can draw attention to yourself and your application[s] as many times as you wish to between now and 23:00 [GMT] on Friday 23rd April.

We'll then put our heads together and announce the winning guests both here and on Twitter on Monday 26th.

So, that's it. If you want to share in the festivities by guest blogging - then grab our attention over the next few days.

If you'd rather just sit back and wait for the show to begin, then just put a note in your diary to check in with us from the evening of Friday May 7th.

We'll look forward to seeing you. Come one, come all.

Julie + Kirsty