See the World

Oooooh what a bad blogger I've been - no posts since this time last week.  I'm not sure where the week went tbh, but "went" it did! 

So anyway, it's Daring Cardmakers day again and it was my turn to set the dare this time.  I don't like to make it too easy - after all, they are supposed to challenge, aren't they?  The funny thing is though, that if you ask any of the team members they'll almost always say that it's their own challenges they find the most difficult.  Mad, isn't it?  You'd think we'd all set challenges that we feel the most comfortable with, wouldn't you?

With me, I find that an idea, or phrase will jump into my head weeks before it's my turn and I'll note it down - then suddenly it's my "week" and I think "Whooooaaa, what on earth made me think that was a good idea" and spend best part of the week shuffling paper and panicking that this time I've bitten off more than I can chew!  That's just how it goes pretty much every time

The World is Your Oyster
I'd like you to celebrate all the amazing and diverse countries and cultures we have in this world of ours by making cards with a "feel" of any country you like. There's a whole world of possibilities out there, so don't just go for the obvious {wink}
You can take your inspiration from the colours, style, patterns, maybe the food or national costume etc - rather than showing images etc of that place (though you could do that if you wanted).
The Football World Cup starts today, so perhaps if you're desperate (I hate football, but don't let that stop you...hehe) checking out the teams that have reached the finals might give some ideas too.

 I knew this was a tricky one as soon as I noted it down and always planned to come up with something else before I needed to actually set the dare.  In the end, the "light-bulb of brilliant ideas" failed to switch itself on and I decided to go with the original idea.  Despite a few early mumblings of dissent , once the girls in our fab DT got into it they came up with some wonderful ideas - I knew they would though - they don't give up on a challenge easily!

The cards are fabulous - you can check them out on the DCM BLOG;  see if you can work out which country the girls have used for their inspiration, then go to the personal blogs to see if you're right.

Here's mine

My card is inspired by my love of Greece, where I've spent many wonderful holidays in different parts of the mainland and quite a few of the many beautiful islands.  For this card I turned to the archetypal Greek Postcard images of Santorini and tried to use the colours and shapes you see all around when exploring the streets that tumble down the side of the crater.  
I've used punched squares to represent the houses, blue punched circles for the domes on the many churches and bell towers, and some of Leo's "Blossoms on Branches" from the May  Crafty Template set for the oleander.  I cut them in different sizes and shades of pink using my Craft Robo and also used CR to cut tiny yellow flowers for the stamens and some green tear-drop shapes for the leaves

I thought I'd add a couple of our photos so you can judge whether I got the idea!

I hope you'll join in with our World Tour this week, I'm really looking forward to visiting lots and lots of different countries via your blogs!  No airport queues or cramped airline seats to contend with either!

Not only have I neglected my own blog this week, but I've neglected my blog-hopping too, so I plan to do a lot of catching up over the next few days.  With all the footie on the telly to avoid it shouldn't be too hard to find some blogging and crafting time, anyway!

Happy days.

Thanks for looking, please, leave a message - I always love to read them.