Wanted New Cards: Invitations Halloween Costume Parade
Wanted Cards – Invitations Halloween Costume Parade
Approaching another Halloween with cautionary guidelines and modified celebrations.
Please see this prior request for Halloween Invitations and specifically for Halloween Costume Parade invitations. An outdoor parade either by foot or car is just what the Dr ordered!
These cards should go here:
Invitations >> Halloween Party >> Halloween Costume Parade

We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs. Remember, when you’re submitting your new stock card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers.
Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
Freebie Wednesday: Label Creator Font
Label Creator is an elegant and distinct decorative font. Fall for its ravishing style and use it to create gorgeous wedding invitations, beautiful stationary art, eye-catching social media posts, and much more! Only available on the Creative Fabrica site for another 5 days, don’t miss it!





This product comes with a commercial license.
Trendy Tuesday: Shrooms!

Let’s switch it up a bit and talk about the latest trends instead of colors. Mushrooms are hot in the world of design and fashion. Let’s take a closer look and maybe there is some inspiration there for you to incorporate into your card designs.

Trend Flash gives you the low-down from Foraged fungi from botanical clusters and illustrative toadstools to psychedelic technicolour fungus. Check out their Magic Mushrooms print and pattern trends for 2021/22.

ELLE Decor talks about latest mushroom trends in home decor from whimsical toadstool prints to platinum fungus-inspired lamps. The ‘spore’ the merrier!

VOGUE is tripping over Fungi taking over Fashion.

Etsy is a marvellous source for your Mushroom needs. Check it out!

Vecteezy offers you a plethera of, often free, Mushroom Pattern Vector Art.
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And Pinterest will always be a wealth of inspiration (mushrooms included), so don’t forget to go there.

I hope I gave you some helpful hints for your next autumn designs.
Nuts and Bolts: Card Details Export
The difference is made in the details!
Mindy
GCU Community Manager
Wanted New Cards: Welcome to the Neighborhood COVID
Wanted Cards – Welcome to the Neighborhood COVID
Being the new people on the block can be intimidating. Moving during times like a pandemic, when being sensitive to social distancing is a concern, makes getting to know your neighbors even harder.
Please consider creating Welcome to the Neighborhood / Neighbourhood cards respecting the new neighbors’ privacy and concerns of social distancing.
These cards should go here:
Occasions >> Welcome to the Neighborhood / Neighbourhood >> COVID / Coronavirus

Here are some things to consider when Welcoming New Neighbors.
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs. Remember, when you’re submitting your new stock card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers.
Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
Freebie Wednesday: Watercolor Halloween String Lights Clipart
Spooky scary graphics are here for our Freebie of the Week! Here’s FREE Watercolor Halloween String Light Cliparts!
These illustrations are perfect for the upcoming Halloween season! Decorate your favorite Halloween themed designs with this pack of pretty neon string lights! All files come in PNG formats.
This lovely freebie is brought to you by Digitalartsi! Only available on the Hungry Jpeg site for a week!



This product comes with a commercial license.
Nuts and Bolts: Dedicate Yourself to the Details
2. the flow of the flower seems unnatural, have you tried it upside down so the flower points down? Again, up to you if you’re up to trying it.
In any of the above cases, we look forward to your resubmission, thank you!”
Before:

After:

The difference is made in the details!
Mindy
GCU Community Manager
Wanted New Cards: You’ve Been Booed!
Wanted Cards – You’ve Been Booed!
A popular trend to celebrate Halloween is a friendly doorbell ditch treat bag activity known as You’ve Been Booed! With traditional trick or treating somewhat uncertain, this is a fun and social distancing way to celebrate Halloween.
Please consider creating You’ve Been Booed cards to go with the boo bags and baskets.
These cards should go here:
Holidays >> Halloween >> Boo Bag / Basket / You Have Been Booed

Do a little searching online about the activity and “rules”.
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs. Remember, when you’re submitting your new stock card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers.
Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
Dash of Inspiration: SEPTEMBER 2021 Design Challenge
Something different and fun this month which actually has a large market during the holiday season, so let’s get to it!
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Theme: Western Christmas
Requirements:
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Create a brand new design featuring a Western Holiday theme for any holiday season category well suited to your design.
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Write your own verse/message, be creative and write a message that clearly speaks to your imagery, occasion and recipient.
- Blank verse will not be considered for entry in this challenge.
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Entry Deadline: Thursday, September 30th
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How to Enter: Post the PID (card number) and the URL (public storefront link – please WAIT for the card to be available in the public marketplace, please DO NOT post a link to your Manage Cards area) as a post in the challenge blog. We’ll forward your entry to the jury.
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Category: Any Christmas holiday category.
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Rules:
- Submission must meet GCU’s Submission Guidelines and be Approved through the usual Review Cycle– Fast Track your submission with this in the Notes to Reviewer: SEPTEMBER Design Challenge Submission here is the link to the blog post: (include THIS blog post URL)
- Only ONE card per artist per challenge.
- Submissions must be NEW, no existing designs.
- Your entry must meet the Challenge Requirements and Theme or it will not be included in the challenge.
- Stock Card Creations entries will not be accepted.
- Your designs should differ from those already offered in the category of your choice to offer shoppers a variety of choices, not more of the same.
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BLIND Judging: We hope each of you enters every month. Entries are submitted anonymously for judging by the GCU Challenge Jury which means that before and during the challenge, judges do not have any way of knowing what artist is behind each entry. This eliminates any and all concerns with ‘favoritism’. Results will post on the Community Blog. The jury will judge the entries on the following criteria:
- How well the card meets the Challenge Requirements and Theme.
- How well the card speaks to the Category the artist chooses for the card submission.
- Creativity, Execution and Marketability.
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Winners: 1st Place:
- The winning designer’s card and store will be featured on the GCU Public Blog – the blog which customers view and follow.
- As well as featured on the GCU Public Facebook Page – nearly 58,000 followers, now THAT’S exposure!
- The winning card will be Design of the Day following the announcement of the winners (within 48-hours).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards may not be featured as DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.
- The winning card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board – currently GCU’s Pinterest Page followers: 5.36K!
- The winning card, should the artist choose, may be referenced in a new series by the winning artist and he/she may Fast Track all cards in the new series (being sure to give the Challenge URL and winning card PID in your Notes to Reviewer for each card in this series).
- Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
- GCU will create a Meet the Team board for the winning artist under the Pinterest GCU account where the winning artist will be able to pin and promote her own storefront and all that makes them a unique card designer and one of GCU’s artistic community team member.
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Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!
- GCU will create a Meet the Team board for the winning artist under the Pinterest GCU account where the winning artist will be able to pin and promote her own storefront and all that makes them a unique card designer and one of GCU’s artistic community team member.
- 10 free greeting card credits added to your GCU account. Apply them at checkout and they never expire.
- A Design Challenge GCU digital award for 2021!
2nd Place:
- Your submission will be Design of the Day the following week of announcing the Challenge winners (within 7-days).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards may not be featured as DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.
- Your card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board.
- Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
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Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!
- 5 free greeting card credits added to your GCU account. Apply them at checkout and they never expire.
- A Design Challenge GCU digital award for 2021!
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Tips:
- TIP: GCU does not have a Western Christmas category, so be sure to create strong meta-tag data to represent the western flair of your new design.
- Nuts and Bolts: How to Write Product Descriptions
- Keep in mind that Western Christmas cards have deeper reds, more sage toned greens, here is some color palette inspiration.
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Be inspired to create and learn something new!
Doreen Erhardt©
Freebie Wednesday: Sallomae
Sallomae, a playful display font, inspired by jungle cartoons and children’s books! Sallomae is designed with a cheerful monoline concept and adjusts well to keep the font’s legibility. Sallomae is a flexible typeface that you can use for many designs and themes.
This playful freebie is brought to you by Artefak Project! Only available on the Hungry Jpeg site for a week!




This product comes with a commercial license.




