A New Year a New Dare!

Happy New Year! 

It's been a long time off from my blog and quite unannounced unfortunately, but I'm so excited to get back in to the swing of things. Let's just say that my hip recovery/therapy and the holidays were putting limits on my creativity and mobility.

Enough of that though. I'm posting today for the first of the year Diva Dare on Verve's blog. You can jump over there and get the details to play along as well as link your "Smitten" projects.

Last weekend I made a surprise trip back to my hometown for two birthdays in my family. The surprise was for my mom and it went well with me walking in her door without invitation behind the known arrival of my older sister. The other birthday was my oldest sibling, Randy. He's started up a cattle business late in life and that seeps into our family conversations. It's what has inspired my card for this month's Diva Dare, "Smitten". 

One of our conversations during my visits was around the hardship of creating advertisements for his business. His tagline is "Building Better Beef" and part of that is creating genetic lines that hopefully get better and better with every generation. While there is a lot of back story to this I'll just say that his dilemma isn't in the photo taking but in his cattle. They are "smitten" with him and follow him every where always within arms reach. He nor his wife can get a click of the shutter in time before the cattle are too close for a full shot. It's probably not that they are smitten with him but more the hand that feeds them is the lead of their desire.

So the next time your trying to take a picture of your sweet kids or pets and they just can't stay away from you, they just might be smitten with you. Or just really hungry.  

Rope in that mojo and link up your "Smitten" project this month. We'd love to see you in the gallery!

Details:
Stamps: Chevron Love (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Chocolate, Haute Red, Sundance (Wausau and Neenah), Honky Tonk (Cosmo Cricket)
Ink: Chocolate Chip , Real Red (Stampin' Up)
Accessories: Awards Banner Trim, Jotted Heart, Banners Bundle dies (A Cut Above Dies, Verve), Red, White and Beautiful Ribbon Collection (Verve Stamps), hemp twine