A May Magnolia.

Despite the rain yesterday, I still managed to be in the spring mood to create a card using my Magnolia stamp.  It's great when an idea floats into your head and you think, yep that colour and that colour with that piece of this and that, then you come to do it and you just can'r get it right or it's not how you have the image in your mind.  Well, that is what is happening to me at this moment in time.  Bring out the band for CONFUSED dot com.

However, pulling my brain together (somehow) I managed a simple-ish card.

 

Parenthis shaped card, covered in paper from my own stash.

Spellbinders Scalloped Ovals Large.

Colouring medium Promarkers:

Skin = Coral, Dusky Pink & Blush

Clothing = Duck Egg, Cool Aqua, Pastel Blue, Cinnamon & Sandstone.

Hair = Umber, Walnut, Shale, Sandstone & White Sakura Pen

Paper Tea rose flowers from Hobby craft, pink stickles to glitter egdes.

Two handmade tissue paper roses spritz with cosmic shimmer mica mist.

Liquid Pearls for around image.

This card I would like to enter into the Just Magnolia Challenge 105 Anything goes with optional real or faux stitching.

Need a Holiday to recover from the last one!

Thank you to all those whom have posted comments, I appreciate your time for stopping by and the lovely and wonderful things you've had to say.

I know I have been M.I.A this week and the same will happen next week. Why? Well this week just gone was the mother-in-law's 80th Birthday, so The dear hubby and I took her on a taster cruise to France. This is a lady who has never had a passport nor been out of England.

We boarded the Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas from Southampton for 3 days (to Le Havre & back). Ordered a bouquet for her room and a cake for the Dining room, Whisked her on a trip to olde gay Paris and treated her to ice skating shows and theatre productions. I think she will sleep soundly this week, although for us it was stressful and tiresome so timing is perfect for next weeks cruise on the Liberty of the Seas with our Publican's wife and few fellow pub goers!

 

Forward of the ship docked in Southampton.

Stirngs, the ice show in Studio B.

Haha! Couldn't resist!

Independence of the Seas  own Orchestra in the Theatre.

Signing off til next weeks cruise update!! (oh and some RCCL scrapbooking too!)

Enjoying the sunshine.

Had a lovely day at the seaside, went to Fleetwood & Blackpool.  The temperature gauge was showing 21 degrees, the sun was out with a gentle sea breeze.  Popped into Craft Central at Freeport oulet village and came out once again several pennies lighter, although I did get two cute sets of stamps from Oliver's Orchard.


Then the Hubby and I ventured down to The Promenade for not-so-fish and chips, more like pie, chips & gravy of which we both devoured and enjoyed.  Oh and not forgetting our favourite 2p machines in the amusement arcade.

First attempt at a Circle Easel Card.

Found a great guide to an Easle card from Debbie P's Place at http://debbiepsplace.blogspot.com/, following this guide I attempt to give it a go.

Using another one of my Lili of the Valley stamps, this time 'Gift Wrapped' & Birthday Circular sentiment stamp.

 

I chose to colour the bunny brown using promarkers, to compliment the Yellow-themed card. 

The reason why it is Yellow is because I came across a lovely little blog by Crafty Cardmakers and there they run blog challenges too, but having sometimes the lack of creativity they put forward a 'recipe' of what must be in / on the card to count.

The latest recipe, #43, consists of the Use Yellow as your MAIN COLOUR, Add Ribbon, Use Stitching Faux or real & Use Rhinestones/Gems.

Checklist:  Yellow as main colour      Tick

                   Used Ribbon                     Tick 

                   Faux Stitching                   Tick

                   Used Gems                       Tick

Side on view of card, stopper used is a flower created from Marianne creatable dies.

Bottom Half of card, a fineliner pen from Letraset was used for the faux stitching.

Full front on view of card.

This card has been made for the Crafty Cardmakers Blog Recipe Challenge #43.

My LOTV Stamps.

Having purchased lots of LOTV stamps, I have been trying them out one at a time.  This time 

around it was 'Little Acorn' and a Circular sentiment stamp.   I think this stamp is one of my top 3 if not my favourite.  

Along with several attempts at stamping centrally onto my nesties, I had a few to have a go at!

I went for a baby blue card, colouring the stamp  with £1 shop pencils - these were a bit waxy however the end result was good.  

Distress ink blending for the nesties edges gave a spring's sky effect, which was nice.  

I embossed a plain piece of white paper with 'swiss dots' and carefully rubbed a green chalked based ink over the raised dots.

Tying the ribbon was fun, I ended up tying two double knots before tying the bow itself.

I used two ribbons to give the card a bit of dimension, also the pale green complimented the embossed background paper and was a contrasting colour to the blue.

Finding the appropriate sentiment was going to be a task in itself, as I don't really have many 'baby' celebration stamps.  

Going through the sentiments stamps I had bought from http://liliofthevalley.co.uk, I spotted one that was open to interpretations well as a nice statement in itself - ' Wishing you a World full of Joy'.

So I measured up a nestie, cut it out, distressed the edges and inked up the stamp.  With my fingers crossed I hoped I had stamped as centrally as possible - success!

Another cute little card made by my own fair hands.  Aww!

So, I shall enter this card into the following Challenge Blogs:

1) Aly's Sunday Challenge-Hoppity Bunnies http://alyssundaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/04/asc39-hippity-hoppity-bunnies.html

2)   LOTV Challenge Blog - Spring http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/

 

3) Little Claire's Challenge 4 - Spring Celebrations http://littleclairesdesigns.blogspot.com/2011/04/challenge-4-spring-celebrations.html