Crossing Continents

Our lovely Saffa's background is a real mixed bag of countries and cultures so to reflect this she set us a fiendish dare this week entitled

Crossing Continents

"I come from a very multicultural background and love being able to see them all from within and this is what has inspired this weeks challenge....take a deep breath...
I would like you lovely ladies to make a card that celebrates and reflects a festival from another culture to your own...."

A couple of years ago I struggled through Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" an enormous brick of a book! I think it took me about 3 months but I did finish it eventually, all 1500 pages. Among the bits I remember was the description of the Hindu Spring Festival "Holi" - when among other things everyone goes out in the street throwing coloured water and coloured powders over each other.

"The central ritual of Holi is the throwing and applying of coloured water and powders on friends and family, which gives the holiday its common name "Festival of Colours." This ritual is said to be based on the story of Krishna and Radha as well as on Krishna's playful splashing of the maids with water, but most of all it celebrates the coming of spring with all its beautiful colors and vibrant life."
More about Holi here
It sounds a mad, crazy festival so I've made a card to celebrate Spring, and Holi:
Going away for a few days does nothing to help when the dares are as tricky as this one, I thought I'd have my idea all ready to make up by the time I got home, but I was really stumped until I remembered the Vikram Seth book yesterday!
My card has lots of colours, plus a few Indian inspired sequins and beady bling. The background is glossy card painted with random splodges of Twinkling H2Os, with a bit of glitter over the top. I used sequins and beads to sew it onto the black square. The letters are pizza box "chipboard" (not as good as cereal packets, but I've run out of that!) decorated with gold inks, UTEE, glitter and coloured embossing powder. The tag was made with scraps from the painted and the black card with some doodling around the edges. I added a few bright fibres to mimic the throwing of the coloured powders. It still looked a bit bare so I stuck some more sequins on in random fashion.

A ever there are more cards to see on the DCM blog, and all the information and the stories behind our efforts are on our personal blogs. This was a tough challenge, and one that really made us think HARD - and do some research - so this one was a real learning experience too, thanks Saffa!