What a week

Not the most fun time I've ever had, that's for sure.
My uncle's death and funeral shook me more than I really expected. You know it's sad and you're going to feel dreadful, but in this case there was something extra I hadn't bargained for, the realisation that this was my last link with the history and heritage of that side of the family, so this has all left me feeling a bit cast adrift. Do you ever have those times when all you want is to curl up in a warm, dark and safe cupboard while you recover some sort of equilibrium?

Add to that the building work going on here, and the fact that they'd planned to do the knocking down wall bit the day we were out, but in fact did it on Wednesday - the day after the funeral when I wasn't exactly feeling at my best. This one guy did all the drilling, knocking down and later the carrying away all of the bricks and stuff to the skip - it was about 6.30 before he left and I was done for.
The people who built the original extension for some bizarre reason decided that a kitchen door wasn't necessary and put an archway there instead. A bad idea at the best of times as even making cheese on toast under the grill sets the smoke alarm off - but when there are walls being knocked down elsewhere in the house - well the dust was everywhere. the floor the surfaces, everything had a pink tinge of brick dust. My poor cappuccino maker looked a right mess!
We went to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner - there was no way I could face cleaning all that up before I could start to cook.
I think that was (hopefully) the worst day of the project - we always knew it would be a bad day, but the timing could have been better.
I'll stop the moaning now and write about the fabby dare the DCM have been doing this week instead - a much nicer subject altogether

We've a special dare this week. Bea from Ribbon Oasis is sponsoring a challenge to use her fabbylicious range of Christmassy ribbons on our cards. So Lucky Us - we all received an envelope full of ribbons to play with and on the DCM blog you'll find the cards we've made (so far!)

So this week we'd love you to join in and make Christmas cards using lots and lots of fabby, yummy ribbon - now that shouldn't be too hard, after all we all love ribbon, don't we?

Don't forget that you can replenish and expand your ribbon supply easily by visiting the Ribbon Oasis website - you'll find so much of the gorgeous twirly stuff there you'll be spoilt for choice - we guarantee it!

Now then, just in case you need a bit more enticement to join in our dare:

Wrap it in Ribbon for Christmas

here's a little sweetener: Bea is giving a ribbonful prize to one lucky darer this week. All you need to do is make a be-ribboned Christmas Card especially for the DCM (no doubling up of challenges this week....), post a link to say where we can see it, or send it by email to daringcardmakers@hotmail.co.uk for the gallery and you'll be in with a chance of winning. Couldn't be easier, could it?

With all the hassles in "real life" I struggled with kicking my mojo into gear this week, but yesterday finally managed, after a few false starts on Wednesday, to come up with these

Actually, I'm not keen on this one - probably because it didn't want to come together without a fight!
Paper is by Adornit
Circles cut by the Craft Robo from plain white card then embossed with the Cuttlebug snowflakes folder

(ooohhhhh they're playing one of my favourite pieces of classical music on the radio - the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni)
Hat is hand cut from some metallic blue card and covered with pieces of silver mesh ribbon and this gorgeous blue satin and organza ribbon that has a silver thread running through it too.
The tree is downloaded for the Robo from the Bosskutz site and covered with Stickles glitter glue.

All the ribbon - and just how cute is that snowman ribbon? - is of course from Ribbon Oasis

I like this one better, though even here it took a bit of persuading to work. Originally it was going to have tags saying Celebrate Christmas - I got as far as making the words and utting them on the Robo but then I got a bit stuck!

Anyway, eventually I gave up on the "celebrate" and just used the ingle word, cut in blue metallic card, mounted on plain white then gold glitter card. I simply tied some of Bea's gorgeous blue organza ribbon with stars and trees on it around the "tag" in a simple bow to show the ribbon off at it's best. I echoed the stars on the ribbon along the edges of the piece of blue card - I have no idea where I got thsi from, which is a shame as it's absolutely beautiful, it is a lovely colour and has a soft shimmery pearlescent finish - much nice irl than on the photo.

So those are my Wrap it in Ribbon for Christmas cards using some of Bea's yummy scrummy ribbons. You really do need to check out what's on offer at Ribbon Oasis
I'm always very happy to spend a happy hour (or two!) going through all the pages of ribbons there are to ooh and ahh over on there. take my advice - find a spare hour and make yourself a coffee, then enjoy a good old browse around Bea's Ribbonfest of a store!