By Royal Appointment

Thanks to everyone who took part in Rein's fab dare last week! There were some lovely card projects on show.

Also a big thank you to everyone that applied for our Design Team callout - we have been really impressed with the submissions.

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This week it's me, Nat, setting the dare, and I'm sure you'll be able to guess our theme!

Yep, in honour of today's right Royal Wedding your challenge is to make a card with...

A royal or patriotic theme to it!

You could choose anything from fairytale princesses to vintage-ware à la all the (sometimes kitschy) memorabilia that has been on offer in various retail outlets throughout the land.

Check out the wonderful projects that the design team have come up with.

Happy creating everyone!

Nat

Lythan

Zuzana

Lynda

Kathy

Rein

Samm

Jo

DCM Designers Call-Out (Please Scroll down for This Week's Challenge)

The Daring Cardmakers have been setting weekly challenges for cardmakers for over five years now - in fact we believe we were the first of the cardmaking challenge blogs! 

It's been a wonderful journey and now we're having our first ever Designer Call-Out to find 2 talented designers to join our fab DT and help inspire crafters all over the world. 

If you love what we do and would like to be part of it, please email
DCM_enquiries@hotmail.co.uk
and we'll get back to you with an outline of how to apply. 
Successful entrants will need to have a blog or be prepared to start one.  Applications are welcome from anywhere in the world.
Applications must be with us by12 noon on Thursday 28th April (UK time), no emails received after this time will be accepted, sorry.

We're looking forward to hearing from YOU!
This stage of the process is now completed
Thank you to all who contacted us for info, and especially to those who have sent in their full application.
We have lots of wonderful applicants and have already seen many fab examples of their work.  
It's going to be a hard task to choose who to invite to join us, but space is limited, so choose we must! 
Now, for the second part of the DT Call, we're looking forward to seeing the cards they make for our challenges and getting to know them a bit better over the next couple of weeks.

Speaking Professionally

Just a quick reminder to those who requested details on how to apply for out Design Team places that the first part of the application process closes at 12 noon on Thursday 28th April (UK time). There's still time to contact us and then get your application in, though, so if you like what you see on our blog and would like to be part of it, check out the info on the post above this one.

Hello,

It's Rein here this week, and on behalf of the team I'd like to say thanks to all of you that joined with us last week - so many wonderful Spring and Easter cards!

Time for a new challenge though, and my dare for you this week is

'speaking professionally'

I would love to see the perfect card for a cook, a gardener, a pilot, a nurse ...
or any other job you want.

We're looking for cards all about the jobs people do this week and we can't wait to see what you come up with so please don't forget to come and let us know where we can see what you make.

Here are some cards from the DT to get you thinking

have fun!

Lynda

Rein

Zuzana

Nat
Kathy

Spring Fling

A Great Big Thank You to all who joined in Lythan's "Draw A Bird" challenge - and a special "Well Done message to those of you who were brave enough to really go for it and draw your own birdie!

With Easter just around the corner Spring is certainly in the air!

This week we want to see your Spring or Easter inspired cards.

You could go with classic Spring colours, Easter bunnies and chicks or, for extra flair, why not literally add some spring with wire embellishments, hinges, and some dimensional magic!

The team have been hard at work this week creating some lovely projects to get you inspired.

Don't forget to link up to your card - we love to see what you've made.

Oh and if you've not seen the details about our Design Team call, check out the post at the top of the blog for more info.

Happy creating!

Nat

Lynda

Zuzana

Kathy

Rein

Lythan

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Draw a Bird Day

Did you know that April 8th is officially draw a bird day? Me neither until I was stuck for a dare and looked up the significance of April 8th. So let's give it a go!

Draw a bird

If you really can't face drawing your own bird then I will allow stamped or paper pieced birds as well.

As usual here's what the Team have made this week, we hope you'll enjoy seeing our cute little birdies and will feel inspired to join in with us this time.

Don't forget to come back and leave your link when you're ready - and please don't forget to leave a comment too as we do love to hear what you think.

PS Don't forget our design team call - why not give it a whirl!

Lynda

Nat

Lythan

Zuzana

Rein

Kathy

Please Leave us a comment as well as your link, we love to read them!

Daisies and Sweet Peas for April

Thank you to everyone who joined in with Kathy's Book Club Dare last week, it was fun to see so many creative "takes" on the challenge. Before announcing the new dare, we have 2 exciting pieces of news to share:

Firstly We're thrilled to let you know that our fabulous March Guest Designer Zuzana Obert will be staying on as a full time DT member, we just love her cards and now we'll be seeing even more of them woohoo!.
Welcome to the Team, Zuzana
Secondly - we are looking for two more fabulous designers to freshen up the DT this Spring, so we're having our first ever DT Call-Out! Would you like to design for us each week and see your cards on here? Well, check the post at the top of the blog for more information - we're looking forward to hearing from you.

As it's the first Friday as well as the first day of the month we return to our series of Flowers of the Month challenges and this week we'd like you to take inspiration from the flowers associated with the month of April, which are

the Daisy and the Sweet Pea

two beautiful flowers to choose from - or maybe you'll be so inspired that you'll make a card for each of them! We'd love to see what you can create using one or both of these flowers as the starting point for your crafting, you can use the inspiration of these flowers in whatever way takes your fancy!

As usual here's what the Team have made this week, we hope you'll enjoy seeing our Daisy and Sweet Pea creations and will feel inspired to join in with us this time.

Don't forget to come back and leave your link when you're ready - and please don't forget to leave a comment too as we do love to hear what you think.

Lynda

Rein

Kathy

Nat
Zuzana

Samm

Lythan

Please remember to leave your comment after you've added your link!

The Book Club

A big Thank You to everyone who joined in with Jo's "Going Postal" challenge last week - what a fun dare - and what a lot of fabulous cards we saw!

This week it's me (Kathy) setting the dare and I'm inviting you along to

The Book Club

I'd simply like you to take your inspiration from Books - and you can do this any way you wish.
You could make a card in the form of a book, make a background using a page (or scanned page) from a book, use an excerpt from a book on your card as a background or focal piece, or use an actual story/title/book to inspire your card.
If you choose to use a specific book for your inspiration, don't forget to let us know which it was.

Please come back and leave a link here to tell us where we can see your creation and we'll pop along to visit.We've added a Linky gadget this week to see how we get on with it- but please leave a comment too

Here are some ideas from the DT Library this week - if you visit our personal blogs you'll find out more about our own inspiration!

Lynda

Rein

Kathy

Nat

Lythan

Zuzana

Jo

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Please leave us a comment as well as your link!

Going Postal!

Hi all, it's Jo here with this week's dare, a huge thank you to all who joined in with Vanessa's Home Baked dare, the cards were amazing!

Going Postal!
Postage stamps are an up and coming trend in the crafting world so I thought this week it would be fun to have cards incorporating them! Real (postage) stamps, die cuts, hand cut, rubber stamps or even punched ones. Cards for any occasion but they must have a postage stamp somewhere!

The design team have created gorgeous cards:

Jo

Lythan

Zuzana

Nat

Rein

Lynda

Home Baked

Thank you all for sharing all your beautiful jonquil and daffodil inspired cards. Now onto this week, and its my turn (Vanessa) to get you all creating. The theme is :-

HOME BAKED

You have to create at least one of your own embellishments for your card and thats it, nice and simple!

We'd love to see what you all come up with and in the mean time, here is some cards from the DT. We hope you'll enjoy seeing them and will feel inspired to join in with us this week :-

Zuzana

Rein

Kathy

Lythan

Vanessa

Samm

Keryn

Lynda

Jo
Nat