Ch. #136--Anything Goes POSITIVE with the Opt. Twist of: Unexpected Animal on a Holiday Card…Midway

 

Hey folks! Welcome back to the Path of Positivity Challenge Blog! It is the third Monday of the month and that means that it is time to present the midway for Challenge #136. It is my fond hope that each of you and your own families continue to stay happy, safe, and well, wherever it is you live in this big wide world of ours. 

As we are a unique kind of challenge blog, it is important for you to understand how things work. Please be sure to check out the START POST FOUND HERE for the specific details related to this month's challenge, and you can find out all the general details you need to know in order to participate, by clicking on the 'Challenge Details' tab (located at the top of the blog). For your convenience, a summary of the most important rules can now be found in the right sidebar under the heading 'General Rules'.
 
Right now, it is time to continue with our midway. Here is a refresher of the details for our current twist:

  

Challenge #136

Anything Goes POSITIVE with the Opt. Twist of 

Embracing The Unexpected:

Unexpected Animal on a Holiday Card 

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.   

Just like with colours, we often associate certain animals with specific holidays and/or occasions. Ground Hog Day (celebrated in Canada & the US) wouldn't exist without the ground hog itself. Though the tradition itself came from Germany, where a badger was used to predict the weather on Candlemas. Easter brings to mind bunnies, lambs and baby chicks. The bald eagle is associated with Independence Day in the US. Dragons and fish are popular during Lunar New Year celebrations, and, of course, the Chinese Zodiac is represented by 12 different animals. Bats and black cats are symbols of Halloween, while cows, monkeys and elephants are part of many Indian and Asian festivals. Then, of course, what would Christmas be without reindeer, polar bears and penguins, or all of the birds listed in the classic carol, The 12 Days of Christmas (partridge, turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, geese, swans and technically the cows that those maids are a milking). Regionally, other animals make an appearance with kangaroos pulling Santa's sleigh in Australia, and robins and wrens being symbols in the UK and Europe. Finally, there are the animals associated with the birth of Christ: donkeys, sheep, oxen and the camels that brought the visiting wise men. 

So, for your optional project this month, we want you to create a card for any holiday, using an animal that IS NOT NORMALLY CONNECTED to the occasion you have chosen. With Christmas ahead, and other holidays in the new year that will be here sooner than you know it, it is good time to make a fun card.

Your choices are endless but here are a few examples to get you thinking:

• Create a Christmas card with one of the following: a hedgehog, a rabbit, an elephant, or a zebra.
• Create an Easter card with a lion or a tiger or a bear [oh my]!
• Make a dog or a cat the focus of a Halloween card.

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.

To help inspire you further down the path of Embracing the Unexpected: Unexpected Animal on a Holiday Card, check out the wonderful projects my Design Team had the opportunity to create. Clicking on each team member's name will take you to their blog where you can check out the details for their inspirational creations.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks again to my astounding design team! As always, each of them have their own unique avenues of creation which I thoroughly admire. Each of these designs has demonstrated the theme of Embracing the Unexpected: Unexpected Animal on a Holiday Card splendidly, and I hope we have motivated you throughout this challenge to come up with your own work of handicraft. Be sure to go and visit these accomplished ladies so you can see just how their projects tie in to the twist.

 

Why not join us, if you haven't entered already? 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?! This month it is time to switch up the animals we normally associate with various holidays and occasions. There are such of a variety of wonderful animals to choose from that you should not have too much trouble with the task for this challenge. 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.

Also, I know that the participants would love for you to go and pay them a visit. Remember we're creating a Path of Positivity to follow one project at a time and we'd love to see you somewhere on that route even if it is just by leaving a comment on an entry from someone who has touched you somehow with their project and/or post! You can find our list of participants and enter our latest challenge yourself by clicking HERE and scrolling down to the bottom of the post.

 

GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY…

Please show your support to our wonderful sponsor, Scribbles Designs, by going over and checking out their work and saying hi if you have the chance. You may also just find an image or two to add your your collection!

Thank you so much to this awesome Canadian company for their
continued support of this challenge blog!

Don't Forget...

Winners for challenge #135 will be posted next Monday if everything goes according to plan. You can find the Top Picks post HERE.

 

If you ever have any questions be sure to leave me a comment.

 

Click HERE to head to the current challenge post & link up!

 

 

We look forward to seeing you participate!