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hi all... i'm thinking of starting to do challenges... but i now have a very, very long list of blogs in my Favorites.
how do you keep track of the challenges you entered?
...and ... how do i word this.... do you make the card and find the challenges the card fits? or do you find several challenges and make a card to fit the challenges?
i made a card, and then was looking around at different challenge blogs, and saw if I had used one more color, i could have entered that one!
then, there's the due dates for each one and checking back to see the winner.
do you just jot all this info down in a notebook? i confused myself LOL thanks for any tips
lisa
I don't enter a LOT of challenges... but I typically make a card to meet just one. I tend to do the same challenges and maybe enter them once or twice a month. Occasionally I will find two that I can combine. But usually it is happenstance if I can enter two. Usually I make a card for one challenge, and while I am in the process I find another one that the same card fits without changing anything. . . There are several stamp companies that say you can use anyone's stamps, but unless I have NONE of their stamps, I try to use theirs... I just think it is polite. :-) And since a lot of the challenges I enter are for stamp companies, that doesn't lend itself really well to combining challenges.
If I were just starting out, I would pick one or two you like and focus on those.
Since I tend to stick to certain companies and / or challenges, I have all of those on my bookmark list and check them a couple of times a week.
Different people do different things. For me, making a card and then finding challenges to fit would defeat the object - a challenge for me is a kick start to creativity. I occasionally combine challenges but I don't think I've ever combined more than three and it's usually just two (a sketch challenge with a product one or a colour combo challenge with a Clean and Simple theme for example). Not all challenges have winners - many are just for fun - and if you play a particular challenge regularly then you're likely to see any posts about winners as they're often combined with the announcement of the next challenge.
One thing you might do is look for an e-mail subscription button on any challenge blog you're interested in hooking up with - that way you get an email each time a challenge (or other blog item) is posted.
I'm with Alaine and Joanne, I make a card for a challenge, or maybe two at most. I might combine, say, the sketch challenge here with an off-site challenge. For me personally, and I am stressing the personally, it's not a challenge if I just look through my cards to find something that meets the criteria.
For keeping track - any of the off-site ones I join in are in Google Reader, so I just see the winner announced there.
Wow - lots of great questions OP. I usually have the beginnings of an idea in my head, like a stamp I want to use, and then I go searching for challenges for inspiration. I might get the sketch from one challenge, the colors from another, . . . and then just pick up other ideas along the way.
Like you, I had a hard time keeping track of all the challenges, so I started a page on my blog to list them all, you can find here: Cooking up Challenges. Those are just my favorites, and certainly not all of them.
Feline Playful does a fantastic job of listing challenges and has just added a feature listing the winners of challenges.
Challenge sites usually don't contact the winner, so you have to revisit them to find out if you won. If you blog, sometimes you'll get the heads up that you won just because your blog traffic for that blog post will increase.
Hope this helps and hope you'll consider joining the Catered Crop challenge. We'd love to have you.
If a challenge catches my eye I will play along.. I personally feel it's in poor taste to make a card then find a challenge that fits. It's called a challenge for a reason: to challenge you to make a new card that fits the parameters of the challenge rules.
I regularly play challenges here on SCS, moxie fab challenges, then a smattering here and there..
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I keep a list of the challenges I play in or want to play in on my blog. It's not a huge list - that would be too hard to manage and I can only make so many cards
I always make one card per challenge. For me, that's the whole point, to challenge myself.
If you don't have a blog, you can use a feed reader to keep track of the challenges you are following.
I'm reading this thread with lots of interest as I love challenges, but often forget to check the sites that have them or forget where I saw what challenge. I should probably note the challenge, due date, etc.
I like combining challenges, but have only managed to hit three or so with the same card. Those are usually sketch, color, theme, and technique challenges.
You can subscribe the challenge blogs/posts in a reader. Then you'll know when there's a new challenge. I usually will do a color combo with a sketch challenge. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone. Reminds me I haven't done challenges in awhile.
I usually find a challenge and then that helps me get creative. Usually it's a sketch challenge or color challenge, but once in a while I use inspiration challenges or others. I find it helps me step out of the box.
how do you keep track of challenges?
