Introducing.....Shabby Saturday on a Friday

It may be Friday but over on The Daring Cardmakers, we've been playing with Shabby Saturday all week!
Anice, of Funky Hand designs has very kindly sponsored this week's dare and sent us all her fantastic collection of downloadable papers and images, called "Shabby Saturday" to play with.
Well, I for one haven't dabbled in this downloadable papers lark so it was a step into the new and unkown for me. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to download and to print - and how fab the designs were.

I think the way to get really good results is to start off with really good quality printer paper, and to adjust your printer settings for quality rather than speed. I had to call in the Resident Computer Expert to help so that I could be sure we'd get the most of the designs - he's the one who knows how to tweak the printer settings, I'm not a techie whizzy computer savvy sort!
We've had this template to work with so that all the DCMers can still join in using their own papers - but it's definitely worth a look at the Funky Hand site and trying some of Anice's fabby designs out for yourself. BTW you might have seen her on TV as she shows her CDs and downloads in "Create & Craft" from time to time....

I've made a couple of cards, and I'm really impressed with the designs and the ease of use

Apart from the lovely papers, for this first one I also used some cereal packet chipboard (for the curved edge rectangle) and the 2 bigger flowers were stuck onto thin card so that I could then curl them over my pointy-poley tool's handle to get some movement it the petals. The smaller flower was cut from the flowery paper in the collection and mounted in the same way.

To keep the flower in shapeI add some small pieces of foam tape on the back of each of the petals - about half way along, then I use glue in the centre of the first et of petals and stick down. I repeat this with the second flower. The smaller flower just has a piece of foam tape in the middle. I'll try and do an example another time with some step by step pictures if anyone is interested.

The only other thing added to this card was the brown brad which holds the fake ribbons to the little tag. I made the other two brads from paper stuck on chipboard and cut using the Cuttlebug
My 2nd card has the addition of a little ribbon tab, otherwise all papers from the same Shabby Saturday" collection - aren't these designs gorgeous?

Would you like to get hold of "Shabby Saturday" for free?

Anice is giving away one download of the collection to the winner of our Lucky Dip this week - all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is to make a card using the template and leave a message on the DCM blog telling us where we can see it. Once the dare closes next week we'll put all the names in our virtual hat and pick a name at random. You've got to be in it to win it, as they say.....

Please pop over to the DCM blog and see more cards made with the lush Funky Hand designs - then visit the Funky Hand website to be tempted even further!