The return of The Daring Cardmakers!

We're back after our Christmas Break and as we so enjoyed the monthly series of birthstone dares last year,  we've decided to do something similar this year too. 

For 2011 we'll be setting aside the first dare of each month for a Flowers series of challenges and we'll be taking inspiration from the flowers associated with each month.

The flowers associated with the month of January are the Snowdrop and the Carnation, so we have some fabulous flower inspiration to start off the year.

That said, it was only yesterday afternoon that I managed to come up with an idea for my card and even then I changed my mind halfway through making it!

The background image was printed directly onto my card and is one of the photographs we took on a visit to Benington Lordship (did you watch "Just William" on TV over Christmas?  The house at Benington Lordship was used as Violet Elizabeth Bott's home in the first episode...) at snowdrop time a couple of years back. I'd planned to find a quotation to use and add another photo of two snowdrops as the main focus.

Instead, I found this legend about the flower and thought it was perfect - at this time of year we're all filled with hope for what the new year will bring, aren't we?  I then decided to see if there was some simple clipart out there that I could make into a Robo template.

I've cut the leaves of the plant in several layers and glued them together only in the middle so that the leaves can splay out from the card.  The snowdrop flowers have four or five layers and some are raised on tiny pieces of chipboard to get the dimension.  I love snowdrops, somehow they really lift the spirit when you see them bravely peeping through the ground in the depths of winter - they really are a sign of hope that Spring is on its way.

I used:

Photographic image resized and printed directly on to a smooth white card blank, The legend was found on the net and printed onto the same type of card

Wide grosgrain ribbon (Ribbon Oasis)

Snowdrop Template made for the Craft Robo and cut from Bazzill card

Gems in corners of the card (Kaiser)
If you would like a copy of the snowdrop template, please contact me via the email link in the sidebar
Please check out the beautiful Snowdrop and Carnation cards over on the Daring Cardmakers blog and join in if you can as we love to see what everyone makes each week.

 Just before I finish, a quick note about the Funky Hand Design Team - Anice is currently looking for new members to join us working with her wonderful products.  Funky Hand has some exciting new developments in the pipeline so it's a great time to get involved.  he deadline for being considered is today, so you'll need to be quick - check out Anice's BLOG for further information - and Good Luck.