At the Beach

Hi It's Keryn here. Thank you so much to everyone that showed us your fabulous snow themed cards for our team dare last week.

That was an extremely hard dare for me as in New Zealand the skies are blue the sun is out and the kids have all finished school for the year and don't return until early February.

So this week I want you to make a card that shows what you'd be doing if you were here. Would you be going to the beach with your bucket and spade or would you be sunning yourself on some Pacific Island. If you just can't cope with the thought of sunny holidays right now make your card with yellows, oranges and other hot colours.

This week we say "Farewell" to Saskia, who has been such a wonderful Guest Designer for the last few months, thank you Saskia - we hope you'll come back for another GD spot soon!

We're off on our Christmas holidays for a couple of weeks after this dare, but we'll be back on January 7th to start off 2011's challenges.  So we'd like to take this chance to wish you all a Wonderful, Peaceful Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.

Don't forget to eave us a comment so we can come and admire your creations this week though!

To give you some inspiration scroll down and see what the design team have been up to with my dare.

Lynda

Saskia

Samm

Keryn

Kathy

Rein

 

Snow Much Fun

Thank you to everyone who joined in with our Turquoise Birthstone challenge this week the cards were so beautiful and so varied too. We wonder if any of you made a card for every single one of the birthstones over the year, they would look wonderful all displayed together, but they were probably all sent to your friends and relations straight away!

A huge thanks also to our lovely sponsor
Flourish With A Bling
for donating such a luscious prize for our lucky draw. All those (who met the criteria) went into the draw and we used the random.org number generator to pick a name.....and the winner is:

Amanda, aka Scotspanda

Congratulations, Amanda, you'll soon be seeing this prize in real life

Please contact Kathy via the email address on her blog with your postal info and your prize will be on it's way from Australia as soon as possible. For those who didn't win but would like some Bling of their own, you can contact Flourish With A Bling via their website to find their stockists. Oh, and do visit their fabby BLOG for all the news from the store - and some great craft ideas too.

This week should have been our lovely Asia Wu setting the challenge, but the dreadful weather we've been having in the UK has messed up their house-moving plans and she is currently without the internet (shock, horror). So we have a substitute, but very apt dare for you:

Snow Much Fun

Any sort of card you like, as long as it's got a snowy sort of theme will count this week and we hope you have some fun - let's face it, at least you get to stay in the warm and do your crafting even though you're thinking about the snow!

As always we'd love to see your creations so come back and leave a link telling us where we can see them.

Here's what the team have been making this week

Lynda

Saskia

Kathy

Keryn

Nat

Rein

.

Turquoise is December's Birthstone

Thank you to everyone who went Spotty and Stripy for Christmas during this last week - it was such fun seeing all those fabulous cards - spots and stripes have got to be one of our favourite design elements!

"If cold December gave you birth

The month of snow and ice and mirth

Place on your hand a turquoise blue

Success will bless whate'er you do."

We'd like you to use this gorgeous stone to inspire you this week,
you can make any sort of card you like and we're sure you will be creating wonderful things!

This week sees the very last of our monthly birthstone dares - we started this series way back with the very first challenge of January and here we are in December with this month's birthstone, the Turquoise.
To celebrate the end of the series we have a wonderful prize to give away to one lucky winner:

This fabulous set of flourishes and stones is generously given by  Australian company 
Flourish With A Bling!
At the moment their gorgeous goodies are available via their website but they are looking for stockists in other parts of the world so if you like what you see and, pass on their info to your favourite craft shop and keep your fingers crossed! Meanwhile of course, you can order direct from their website
As always our prizes are given at random - as long as you do these three things you'll be in with a chance of being the winner and receiving these goodies through the post direct from our fabby sponsor.

1.  Make a card inspred by the December Birthstone, Turquoise
2. Add links on your blog to Flourish with a Bling! and the Daring Cardmakers
3. Enter your project for no more than 5 challenges, including this one

There's lots of information on the internet about the Turquoise, about it's history, myths, the powers attributed to it and where the stones are most commonly found. You may find some inspiration for your cards by visiting HERE.

We hope you enjoy using the turquoise this week and look forward to seeing your creations - don't forget to come back and leave a link telling us where we can see your cards.

Here's what the team have been making this week -

Saskia

Keryn

Nat

Lynda

Kathy

Rein   

Jo

Asia