A Lovely Day in May

What lovely weather we have been having over the last few days and the garden is beginning to get it's colour back.  The sun came out on Friday just in time for "The Wedding" and has stayed for a couple of more days.  As the TV began the build up to the event, there was one song from "Calamity Jane" that kept going through my head.  It made me wonder if there was someone else humming it as she was getting ready for her big day - "Tis Harry, I'm Planning to Marry".

Whilst all the pre-amble & idle chat was going I thought I would try this week's  Freshly Made Sketches Challenge, it was either that, or help hubby sort out the garden shed - so, obviously, no contest!

Our Great-Niece, Annie, has her 6th Birthday coming up so I decided to use the sketch to make her card.  I double checked how old she was going to be as last year I made a mistake with her big sister's card and got a telling off!

The stamp I used is the Woodware "Fairy House" and I coloured it with the set of pens I recently purchased from The Works.  They should have been £40 for the 40 pens but between discount codes and reward points I managed to get £17 off - bargain!  They are really nice pens to use, I am impressed!

The colour cardstock pack was also a bargain from the local "Poundland".

This next card is to add to the all events card collection I am making for my friend who is currently housebound.  This one uses the Woodware "Whale Hello" stamp set.  The background paper is from a "Whizz Kids" paperpack and I used my marker pens to match the colour of the waves to the colour of the mat I used for the stamped image.  The background is Distress Inks in the very apt colours of "Salty Ocean" and "Mermaid Lagoon".

 

I forgot to add this card a couple of weeks ago, it is one I made for my sister's Birthday earlier this month. 

This is one of the largest stamps made by Woodware called "Jacqui's Garden".  I teamed this up with one of the Tonic Design Studios Window Box 3D die set "Tangled Terrace" (it's another one of my bargain buys!)

I learned a valuable lesson on this one, the first I'd made, in that you have to choose your cardstock very carefully to make sure it can withstand the folding.  I had used my American Craft "Heavyweight" "Summer" cardstock but it tore at the tabs and I had to reinforce them - hence the added larger flowers fussy cut to try to cover the repairs.

It's been how long???

Wow, I didn't realise it had been over 5 months since I last posted on my blog!

There's been a lot going on, some good but unfortunately a lot that's not been quite so great and I've just not had the enthusiasm I perhaps should have had.

Whilst I have still been following the Freshly Made Sketches Challenges and have even made a few things I haven't posted anything, mainly due to the time it takes me to remember to take the photos, the link has closed!  This weekend the planets have, eventually, aligned and I made not one but two cards and taken photos in plenty of time (with a couple of hours or so to spare) to actually enter something - hooray!!!

I actually had a wee laugh when I saw this week's sketch as, as a wee pick me up, I had just treated myself to the Tonic Studios Design Collection Magazine & Kit 4 which had a set of 10 "Hello Beautiful" Layering Hearts dies, 8 stamps, an A6 embossing folder and some papers.  Yippee, off to a good start, I had something in the design I could work with!

I have a few Tonic dies, especially after being alerted to some great bargains on the CraftyDevils website last year.  This "Just for You" die being one of them . . .
 

and "Dance All Night" being another . . .