Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

Tracie dared us this week with this brief:
"I looked at my cards last week and thought hmm they are ok but they are all very similar - white square card, double matted embellishment, printed greeting. Dont get me wrong there is nothing wrong with doing what you are good at, I bet we all have our "signature" ranges but I realised what a wealth of techniques and styles I wasnt trying. So this week I dare you to step outside your comfort zone and have a go at something new - be it something you have never tried, or something you havent done for ages."

Sometimes it's too easy to carry on making our cards using the same techniques and styles we are comfortable and content with, and be relatively sure that we will be happy with what we produce. So, it's good to shake ourselves out of the comfort zone every now and then, isn't it....well, maybe!

The girls on the DCM Design Team took this scary dare on board and created a variety of cards using techniques or items new to us, old ones we don't use any more and even some that frankly, we don't like much! And then the sting in the tail is that we have to show the results on the blog for the whole world to see!

A couple of months ago I bought some of the Prima paper packs - they are lovely to look at, but I've completely failed to figure out what to do with them. The patterns are much bolder and more "chintzy" than I usually use and so far I've only managed to use snippets of them. In the pack with the paper you get a sheet of frames and some rub-ons, which are something I've never used before.
The first attempt at a card for this dare was one using the paper and the rub-ons - Total and Utter Failure. The rub-ons went all over the place and the card went in the bin!
So, back to the drawing board and I ditched the paper - ok so I'm a coward.
I really did want to have a go with rub-ons though and on the sheet I noticed this lovely Rennie Mackintosh style one and an idea began to take shape.
There are actually quite a few steps out of my personal comfort zone on this card:
Stop using just white or cream card
For a few weeks now I've been trying to get out of my "white card comfort zone" and use more coloured stuff. The Stardream card from pda is one of my favourites and is hopefully a litle step towards using other kinds of coloured card. This one is stardream silver, but sadly, the finish doesn't really show well on a photo.
Do more stamping
Ok so it's only one tiny stamp, but I bought this one a few years ago and I love it - just haven't used it for a long time because I don't really stamp (well, I have been known to stamp my size 3 from time to time...). I don't find stamping easy and I find colouring the images even harder - somehow it always ends up looking like a 3 year old added the colour, whatever medium I use!
Use new stuff!
Rub-ons - I used two of the rub-ons here - they didn't stick easily to the card, probably because of the shiny finish because on my first attempt it was trying to stop them sticking that was the problem! Anyway - there are a few wobbles in the design because of it.
Twinkling H20's - I used a mix of inks and H20's to colour the stamped image. I bought them a few weeks ago and they've been sitting there still sealed in their packet ever since.
Doodling
I'm useless at this - it's so scary to take up a pen and actually make a mark on your work, knowing that you're likely to muck the whole thing up with just one blob of ink! I stuck to a tiny swirl doodled under the rose - it's not beautiful, but at least I did it!

The rose I felt much more comfortable with, I just kept it simple with a little loop in the wire stem and a bit of a swirl at the bottom to echo the style of the rub-on design.

Don't forget to check the DCM blog to see all the different ways the Team moved out of their comfort zones, and then check their blogs to read more of the whys and wherefores - then we hope you'll be inspired to give our Dare a try and attack a few of your own personal cardmaking demons!