Hello and welcome to The Daring Cardmakers blog! We are a team of card-makers from the UK, mainland Europe and India who'll try to inspire and encourage you to make some wonderful cards. Every Friday at about 10am UK time, one of our design team will post a new dare/challenge, along with our creations to get you inspired. So go on, give it a try - we dare you! Leave us a comment with a link to your card so that we can view your lovely creations too!
3 comments :
Sorry to see you're taking a break. I've recently come back to card making after a couple of years off and was happy to see you were still here. Daring Cardmakers was one of the very first challenges (possibly *the* first) that I found when I started card making and I've always enjoyed playing with the challenges.
I did notice that participation sadly seems to have dropped off here, and if you'll forgive the assumption, I wonder if that's why you're taking a break? There are a lot of challenges out there nowadays and it can be really hard to compete, especially not without having some sort of incentive.
Having run a challenge myself in the past, I know offering prizes every time can be difficult, especially when you're a weekly challenge. That's a lot of prizes and would require coordinating with sponsors or the admin/DT being out of pocket to provide them, which is a big ask.
I apologise for the unsolicited advice and of course disregard if you prefer, but if I was running the challenge I would probably do a soft relaunch with an attention grabbing prize, making it clear that the prizes won't be an every time thing. I would then make sure we are giving reciprocal engagement by having the DT comment on a certain number of entries (e.g. DT person A does even number entries, DT person B does odd number entries), and by also picking a DT favourite card (and maybe top three or honourable mentions) for each challenge. I would also consider changing up the format of the challenge, e.g. would switching to fortnightly or monthly help engagement? Promoting the challenge (e.g. sharing DT creations on Instagram and in Facebook groups with a mention of the challenge, making sure you're listed with Paper Playful and Challenges for Days, etc.) is also a great way to help boost engagement.
Ultimately it is of course up to you what you do with the challenge and I would be sad to see if it closed down but would completely understand. Running a challenge is such hard work and lack of participation is disheartening. Whatever decision you make, I'd like to give my thanks for all the wonderful and inspiring challenges you've offered over the years and wish the best for the future.
Feel free to reach out to me by email at thejoyfulsoulcreates[at]gmail[dot]com if I can help at all :) x
Enjoy your break. I appreciate challenges and the timely work involved in doing them, so you deserve a well earned break. I love checking out all of them. Prizes are certainly an incentive, but what I appreciate more than anything are the comments left by those who are on the teams for these challenges. Everyone seems to always want to be on "teams" but so many of these challenges don't require their team to go leave comments on all who enter. I get discouraged by taking part in so many of these challenges and I don't even get acknowledged in taking part in it.
I keep a date book that every morning for that day I go to "Challenges for days" to write down the challenges I want to take part in. They really motivate me in my cardmaking and I am retired and have the time. That is the only "golden" part I have found in the "golden years." LOL If I don't ever get any comments from that particular challenge, I finally just move on to other challenges that my work is acknowledged.
Thanks for the comments you leave for your participants. I think that makes a BIG difference to some of us in the participation part of the challenges. Just thought I share my thoughts on what motivates people to participate.
I look forward to playing along in the future. I know it's difficult to build a following.....that's true with or without prizes. One possible option would be to offer a Guest Designer spot for your "winner" as an incentive to play along. I also agree with the above comment about commenting on entries. Not many challenge blog DT members do it any more, and people love making friends and getting feedback on their art. Looking forward to seeing you back up and running soon.
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