China Rabbits

Last week's challenge on the Daring Cardmakers was to make a card for yourself making use of all your favourite bits and pieces - it was great fun to do and it was wonderful to visit all the blogs of those who'd joined in.  We're hoping that Lynda's dare this week will be just as much as fun to do - Lynda is even giving a couple of options for how you approach it.

The Year of the Rabbit

3rd February 2011 will welcome in the next Chinese New Year – the Year of the Rabbit. So this week I’m going to let you have TWO options to choose from:-
Make a card with an Oriental feel to it
OR
Make a card that features a rabbit.
It’s entirely up to you.

I've always struggled with Oriental themed cards and projects, they are really out of my comfort zone so obviously I took the second option (and breathed a sigh of relief! Thank You Lynda....)

My little bunny is a version of a Robo template I made ages ago - I think it might even have been a DCM challenge it was made for.  It's been used a couple of times since so definitely worth the time spent converting the free colouring page I used to make it.

My Craft Robo had a good workout for this one.  The bunny is cut in layers, and the various pink paper flowers are also Robo cut.  There are a couple of flower designs which I cut in various sizes to layer up.

I used:

All papers sei Juliette 6x6 pad (Craftz Boutique), Nesties Eyelet Circles, 

Outer frame for the Nesties shape, sentiment, bunny and flowers cut with Craft Robo,  

Small stamen punch (Nellie's), silver brad topped with burgundy Stickles,

American seam binding (3 colours) used for the ruffle and the three rosette flowers, 2 gorgeous wired flowers, beautiful white lace formed into outer rosette (right corner) and bead cup in centre of deep pink rosette all from the new-look  Creative Treasures - Tracy is still in the process of loading everything but it's all looking very fab already.

I had a lovely time making this card - especially making those flowers!  The seam binding is so soft and easy to use - not at all like the much "harder" seam binding and bias binding we're used to here, this stuff is whisper soft and as a bonus there are loads of colours available - I think Tracy has 19 colours of the stuff in the Creative Treasures Shop.

Hopefully there'll be loads of lovely cards to see again this week.  I know that unlike me lots of people love making beautiful Oriental style cards and I can't wait to see them, and bunnies are always a fab and fun image to use for all sorts of reasons - I did think about making this as a baby card but tbh I'm a bit bored with baby cards as I've done a few recently, then it was going to be an Easter card....but the first paper pad I spied was the sei one and it matched so perfectly with the seam binding and the wired flowers that the deal was done.

Please pop over to the Daring Cardmakers BLOG to see the cards the team have been making - and to add a link when you've made your own card of course.

Finally, just a quick note about the launch of Funky Hand's "Craft the Year Away" CD and matching goodies.  This will take place on Create and Craft TV on Sunday 30th January at 10am.  Everything about this new release is fab - lots of beautiful papers and images as usual, but this time there are some fabulous brand new features which have had all the DT raving since the beta copies landed on our doormats!  Here's a sneakpeek of some of the things I've been making for the show

It's been a busy week, but at last I think I've made it to the bottom of my to-do list!  Yesterday I even had time to do a bit of blog-hopping.  I've missed soooo much and it was lovely to wander around and see what's been happening in the land of the crafty blogger! Looking forward to doing a bit more of that over the weekend too.

Now I'm off to check my calendar to see what birthdays need cards made for - and hopefully not discover that I've missed a load :(

Take care, stay warm and have a great weekend