Sponsored Dare with a difference

Yes, we were lucky enough to have another envelope full of goodies landing on the DCM doormats for this week's dare. But this week the sponsorship came from within the Design Team itself. Keryn in New Zealand and Rachel here in the UK are both building up their businesses as demonstrators for Stampin' Up and decided they could get together to sponsor one of our dares.
If you're interested in finding out more about the company's products why not give Keryn or Rachel a shout, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.

The word "Stamping" never fails to bring me out in a cold sweat. From time to time I have a bit of a dabble but it's never going to be my thing - of that I'm absolutely sure. It's not so much the stamping as the "what to do next" I love colouring in, but I don't love colouring in stamped images. The inks run, the colours go naff and mostly they look like a 2 year old got hold of the crayons! When these pages of ready stamped images arrived I had a little panic wondering what on earth I could do which wouldn't look a total mess. The papers and card is lovely and had the opposite effect, paper and card I can do!

Qhilst we were using the items sent by Keryn or Rachel obviously our wonderful DCM Darers can use whatever goodies they can lay their hands on to make a card on the theme of

"Love and Friendship"

Fortunately there were 3 copies of the image I've used for my card, so at least there were spares if it all went pear-shaped!
With the exception of the paints (cheapie Twinkling H2-alikes from The Range, courtesy of the lovely Joanne), pens and inks for edging, everything on this card is from Rachel's Stampin' Up goody bag -the papers, card, brads, buttons and ribbon all match perfectly and are a joy to use - I just love these gotgeous pastel colours. This card is heading to someone I've been meaning to get in touch with for the last few weeks - and just to make it worse, I've just realised I missed her birthday. I feel really guilty now, what a bad friend I must be.

Having done that card I felt it was ok to go back to my non-stamping comfort zone and make another card using some more of Rachel's donated goodies
This time I've used the cute little "Flower in Pot" Cuttlebug die, I cut the scalloped edging with Mr Robo, and the greeting was computer generated.

FOR MY VALENTINE

This is the card I made to give to Hubby on Valentines day:
I used a mix of B&W papers, added red and black ink and some Krylon gold pen. The word is courtesy of Mr Robo (he;'s soooo clever....) Layers of red and gold card on a black base card, the backing paper is "Love Conquers All" by Creative Imaginations. The Cuttlbug hearts are cut from various papers in my B&W collection.

A LITTLE BIT OF FUNDRAISING

Finally for today I'd like to share a Work-in-Progress.
Over on the Bubbly Funk forum we're going to be having a little charity auction to raise a bit of money to help Ellie, the daughter of Kirsty Wiseman who I'm sure most of the UK crafters will know - you can read more about why Ellie needs our help here

So, we are having a fundraising auction with little bits of stash and things we've made being offered. Caroline is going to coordinate the auction, and more info will appear on the main Bubbly Funk shop page along with a link to the gallery where you'll be able to view the items on offer and instructions on how to join in and help little Ellie. Those of us with blogs will show the items we're offering on those too. Anyone can join in, if you see something you'd like to bid on, you'll need to email (or PM for registered forum members) Caroline with your bids. While you're there check out the shop - there are some gorgeous things in there and more being added to tempt us with all the time!

I'm making a maze book to for the auction - I started it yesterday and thought I'd share pictures on here as I go.
It'll be made using the lovely Basic Grey Two Scoops paper set, and inside there will be space to add lots of little photographs and journalling to go with them. I thought it would make a nice Mother's Day gift, but it doesn't have to be!
These are the first photos - remember it's not finished! I just want to help raise awareness and let all my blogmates know what's going on so that if anyone wants to help by donating, or by bidding for crafty stash and goodies then they'll know where to look