Unstampabelles #44 National Symbols

A new month and time for a new monthly challenge at Unstampabelles. We saw some fab 'Thank You' cards from you all last month and the DT have a task choosing their fave so better pop over and see if you're a winner.

This month Susan has given us yet again a real challenge. Susan always stretches us, which is good, as it means our creativity is always challenged. She is asking you to think about a National Symbols that represent your country and to use the colours of your national flag in your design. There are many things that represent the country of Cyprus, my adopted country, where I now live. I have chosen the Cyprus Mouflon  which is native to the island and lives in the mountain region. It is a very shy creature and sightings of it are rarely seen. The National Airline carrier uses it as a symbol also. I have chosen this together with the olive branch which is depicted on the National Flag. I wrote about the olive in my blog last month.

The Cyprus Mouflon:

The Cyprus mouflon is a kind of wild sheep and is found only in Cyprus. Other kinds of mouflon can be found in various Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Syria, the island of Sardinia etc.
The mouflons are very shy and agile; they move very fast on the steep slopes of the Paphos forest and are very difficult to approach, especially when they are frightened. The mature male mouflon is a strong, well-built and beautiful animal. It has a thick and plentiful hide which in winter is of a light brown colour, with light grey on the back and an elongated black patch round the neck. In summer its hide becomes short and smooth, with a uniform brown colour and white underparts.The male mouflons have heavy horns in the shape of a sickle.

Susan is sponsoring the challenge again this month and the goodies she has kindly donated are to the value of approx. $20 (Aus.)

Wow!! How generous is this.....thank you Susan.

This is my take on the challenge.

 

I must say this is not the card I had in my head when I set about making it. I found the perfect colour card stock in my stash as the base card. It matches the colour on the Cyprus flag perfectly. It's embossed card and felt so lovely that I didn't want to cut it!! If you are a crazy crafter like me you'll know what I mean. So I folded it lengthwise to make a long card. If you've ever designed a card like this you'll know it's not the easiest to get your head around. I used a white strip of stash card across the centre. Then I asked Google for some Mouflon images and came across some Cyprus stamps so I used those mounted on card stock. I then began looking for something green and found some hessian which I'd been using for another card. The white circle with the green spray was also in my scrap box. I then cut out some leaves from some LOTV paper and placed them at the sides to represent olive branches. Finally two sentiments were randomly added 'Summer Sunshine' and ' Remember This'. We get a lot of sunshine here in the Summer but at the moment it's being a bit shy like the Mouflon. The narrow green ribbon finished it off.

 

So what are you waiting for it's time to get your creative juices fired up with this Unstampabelles challenge (link in side bar). As usual the Design Team have come up with some amazing creations. So off you pop and see what they have made.......you won't be disappointed I promise.