Garnets

....are the birthstone for the month of January and the first month of a new year is the right place to start off a new series of Dares on the Daring Cardmakers.  We're going to use the first dare of each month to feature the birthstone for that month - are you still with me?

Well, I know that today isn't actually the first Friday of this month, but we were still on our Christmas Break last week so this week is our first dare for this month so by default it's where we start this year long series of dares.

January's birthstone is the garnet - it was a shame I didn't go surfing the net for info until this morning really, or I might have been a bit more imaginative about my card.  I hadn't thought to check on origins, myths, meanings etc - I just focussed on the colour of the garnet in a ring I used to have - probably still do, but I know not where!  If you're interested in finding out a bit more there are loads of sites with info on birthstones, THIS is just one of those I found.

One of Hubby's aunts has her birthday this month so I made a card with her in mind:

There was going to be a little bird on this card but it all went a bit pear-shaped so the bird will have to go on another card at some point! Anyway, after a bit of silent swearing and clenching of fiststhis is what I came up with

Why don't I have much red stuff in my stash?

Having boxed up the Christmas stash and put it out of sight in the big cupboard on Monday, I had to get it out again on Wednesday when I went to make this card.

I drew some swirls with Glossy Accents and added Glamour Dust.

I painted, glittered and GA'd a piece of chipboard with a paisley design

The inner flower was two Prima hydrangeas made into one and the flower centre is cut from lovely velvet paper

The calendar is stamped (yes, I actually stamped it!) - it's one of the "Snag 'em" stamps

I used black stazon ink to colour the tiny swirly clip and a MS corner punch in the ....corner.

Please pop over to the DCM BLOG and see the other cards - you'll also get to meet our lovely January Guest Designer Caz and find a link to her fabulous blog.

I'm not sure about this new editing wotsit on Blogger - it seems fine on my own blog, but it was a right pain this morning on the DCM one and I can't seem to get the spacing right in that message.  I might have to go revert to the old one for DCM stuff.  I'd be interested to know how you're getting on with it if you've changed to the new editing window

Anyway, it's taken me most of the morning to do two blogs and that's time I really should have got more mileage from.  moan moan moan

Off now to try and do some stuff from the the "to do" list - which should be getting shorter but isn't

Catch up with you soon.

Oh, and by the way, if you get a message on your blogs with even more typos than usual, it's probably because I'm trying to catch up with you in odd minutes using my iPod Touch.  Well that's my excuse, anyway!