Ch. #135--Anything Goes POSITIVE with the Opt. Twist of: Embracing the Unexpected…Send a Surprise (or a Card with a Surprise)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Path of Positivity Challenge Blog! It is the first Monday of the month and it is time for our latest challenge to begin! We hope that you and your families continue to stay healthy and safe out there. Apologies for the lateness of this post. I've been struggling to catch up since we've been back this past week (hence also the reason I still haven't published the winner announcement from the last challenge). I had an appt. earlier this evening but I'm back, my belly is full, and it is time to get this post out there.

 

Since we are not your typical challenge blog, it is important for you to understand how things work in order to be sure you are eligible to win any of the prizes offered. If you are new to this unique challenge, you can find out the impetus behind why I started it under the 'Introductions' tab and you can find out all the details you need to know in order to participate, in the 'Challenge Details' tab (both tabs located at the top of the blog). For your convenience, a summary of the most important rules can also be found in the right sidebar under the heading 'General Rules'.

 
Right now, it is time to get down to the business of our latest challenge. Here is what you need to know...

 

Challenge #135

Anything Goes POSITIVE with the Opt. Twist of 

Embracing The Unexpected:

Send a Surprise

 (or a Card with a Surprise)

 

This year's goal is to Embrace the Unexpected in our lives (click here if you'd like to read more in depth about our overall theme for 2025). No matter how much planning we do throughout our years on this earth, we're going to come across circumstances that we can't plan for. These unexpected things may be small or they may be huge and life altering. The only thing that we can control is how we react to these events. So this year, instead of BRACING for the unexpected, we are going to flip that and get in the habit of EMBRACING the unexpected. This will help us to train ourselves to look at these types of events in a different light.

To help inspire you on this journey, each month we will be doing things such as creating fun unexpected projects, working with items we might not typically work with, taking approaches that are different from what we normally do, offering up the unexpected to someone in our life, etc. So, let's get to the details for this month's challenge.   

How are you with surprises?! For myself, it depends on the surprise. I'm typically uncomfortable with them--cue our 'surprise' wedding shower where I thought I was meeting up with my maid of honour and her boyfriend who also happened to be our MC, to go out to a play, only to find myself entering a room full of family and friends ready to celebrate our upcoming nuptials. I so would have dressed and done my hair differently had I known…sigh… Or, then there was the time that a first cousin that I am not really fond of (who lives hundreds of kilometres from us, so it was really quite unexpected), just showed up on our doorstop for a visit! Then he proceeded to tell me that he resented me most of my life because of how close I was to our grandparents. Huh, say what now?! Though there are surprises that I do like. For ex., when hubby comes home from shopping every once in a while and there is a lovely chunk of chocolate at the bottom of the bag that I can actually eat (allergies prevent me from eating a LOT of sweet treats; which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing in the long run for both my waistline and my sugar levels). I also had a friend who would send me these unexpected packages filled with tons of crafting goodies every few years. It was always so much fun going through the parcel and seeing the wide selection of little items she sent me. I'm sure that you yourself have experienced both good and not so good surprises throughout your life as well.

So, for your optional project this month, we want you to brighten someone's day by creating something that you can send as a good surprise to someone special (or give in person) or send a card that has a surprise in it. With Christmas and other December holidays coming up, it is the perfect time of year to surprise someone.

While there are many different things you could do, here are some examples to get you thinking:

• Find or bake a treat that you can drop into a neighbour's mailbox.
• If you happen to have children still in school, create little gift bags for their teachers.
• Take a holiday picture of your family and send it to someone that you haven't seen in a while.  
• If you live in the States, create a Thanksgiving card for a college student or someone that you know might be struggling a bit and add a gift card.
• Buy some socks and underwear and drop them off for unhoused people in your community.

Remember, the twist is completely optional and you don't need to follow it in order to win. However, in order to be considered eligible for this month's goodies, remember that general types of projects/posts will not qualify for the honours and prize UNLESS they are also positive, inspirational, motivational or encouraging in some nature. Additionally, even if a project may qualify as positive, if your post promotes negativity, hatred or anything of an abhorrent nature, your project will be disqualified. Honours and Prize include:

• $6 worth of images from Scribbles Designs, for a person chosen in a random draw based on all qualifying entrants.
• A badge for the following honours: Top Pick, Most Inspirational, Random Winner, DT Delight.

 

Now check out what my awesome design team came up with to inspire you. Clicking on each team member's name will take you to their blog where you can check out the details for their inspirational creations.

 

 

 

 

My wonderful design team continues to astound me each and every month! They all have their own approach and deft insight into the twist. Even after all this time, I continue to be astonished by the purview of greatness in their work! Each of these artful conceptions has showcased the notion of Embracing the Unexpected: Send a Surprise (or a Card with a Surprise) admirably and I hope we have inspired you to commence on your own exploration of creativity. Be sure to go and visit each team member so you can see how her project further connects to the twist.

So what are you waiting for? Create a project and/or post that is positive, inspirational, motivational or encouraging in some nature and join our link up. How about stretching yourself by also opting to follow the twist?! While it isn't mandatory, we'd also love to find out how this month's twist affects your own life. How do you typically deal with the unexpected in your life? Do you view it with trepidation or take it on as a challenge? This month it is time to send someone a lovely surprise. It doesn't have to be expensive or fancy. It doesn't have to cost any money at all. Just something from the heart to brighten someone's day. Be sure to check above for some specific ideas if you aren't sure how to get started. If you want to share your process on how you decided your project, you can write a sentence or two in the body of your post, write a sentence at the bottom of your post next to the link up for this challenge, or simply leave a comment on this post if you'd like. Finally, remember that we're trying to create a Path of Positivity so if you have some time, please visit other people participating throughout the month.

Please join us again next week when we will [hopefully] post the Top Picks for Challenge #134. Then, be sure to join us again on November 17th when we'll be back with our midway featuring more great projects. I'll also do my best to get that winner announcement posted as soon as I can manage as well.

 
If you ever have any questions be sure to send an email to decossesdynamitedoodles {at} yahoo {dot} ca (don't forget to replace {at} and {dot} with the appropriate symbols), or just leave me a comment.

We look forward to seeing you participate!

Link Up Below:
If you have any problems linking up, please be sure to let me know by leaving a comment on this post.

Ch. #135--Anything Goes POSITIVE with the Opt. Twist of Embracing the Unexpected: Send a Surprise (or a Card with a Surprise)
This is the place to link up something that you have created during the month that you consider positive, inspirational, motivational or encouraging in some nature. Entries for this challenge will be accepted from November 3rd until 11:59 p.m. (ET) on November 30th, 2025. 

SEVEN entries MAX. Please click on the 'Challenge Details' tab located at the top of the blog to see all the rules. A summary of the most important rules can also be found in the right sidebar under the heading 'General Rules'. If you would like to be a Guest Designer in a future challenge, please add the letters GDT after your name.