Back on the Island

Hi everyone,
What a busy week we had last week across in the UK, craft workshops, craft show,  lunches out, shopping, wildlife park and a trip over to Sheffield were just some of things I got up to.  More about all that later.  I will say though we had a really nice time catching up with family and friends, we got to spend quite a bit of time with Lauren and our gorgeous grandson Alex. He's growing up so fast.   
This is the first chance I have had to Blog since we got back.  I don't know where this week has gone.   I feel a bit guilty really, my blog's been neglected for the past 2 weeks. Ah well, here goes.  Seeing as I didn't enter the LIM Blog Challenge last week because we were away, I thought I'd get back into Blog posting with this weeks entry.
It's Week 60 and the recipe is 'Take Three Challenges'.   http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/   We have to choose 3 past challenge recipes and bring them all together on this weeks card.  I haven't been doing this Blog challenge for that long so I had to take a look at the list of all the past challenges and this is what I came up with.
As usual I ended up doing two cards - different themes though.
Number 1   Just a Note ...

For this card I chose recipes from -  Week 9    A touch of Red
                                                       Week 24  Circles
                                                       Week 46  Music
I suppose I could also include Week 12  Off Centre  in this design.
I stamped the music with black ink using the Hero Arts Music Background stamp and then used Nestabilities dies to cut out the circles.  I then mat these onto slightly bigger circles of SU Cherry Cobbler cardstock and attached them onto my base card.  I finished it off with a small Penny Black sentiment.  As you probably all know Black and white with a touch of colour is one of my favourite ways of designing cards.  It always looks so clean and polished.

Number 2  A little bit of pink

This one took me a little longer to do, and it's got more on than usual for my LIM challenge.
For this card I used   Week 1   Pink, Black & White
                                Week 16  Butterflies/Butterfly
                                Week 43  Bit of bling
I decided to go for a black base card for this one.  I don't normally use dark card for my base, it's nearly always white or cream, it's easier to write inside then.  However if I do, when I decorate the inside I use a white panel and match it to the design on the front,  that then gives me somewhere to write a message.

I always like to decorate the inside to match

The stamp I used on this card is one I have had forever.  I bought this when I was going through my Oriental phase years ago.  The reason it has surfaced again is SU have brought one out very similar in their latest Spring Mini catalogue (Easter Blossoms set) and I was using it last week at Sally-Jo's Creative Cafe.  Check out Sally's blog for inspriation and great ideas  http://stampin-sally.blogspot.com/  My stamp is not exactly the same as the SU one, but it's just as pretty.  The blossoms were coloured using the new Tim Holtz Distress Markers in Spun Sugar, and the centres were highlighted with liquid pearls. I left the branch as is becasue I didn't want to bring in another colour, I felt it would spoil the look of the card.  I inked around the white panel using the same shade of distress ink. 
The butterflies were cut with the Martha Stewart Butterfly punch, from colorcore cardstock - not sure what shade though, as it was a scrap from my bit box (hmm .... could have used Week 56  Don't Scrap It).  The bit of bling is small aurora borealis gems down the bodies of the butterflies.  The sentiment is from Penny Black and the ribbons were again bits from my stash.

Although I'm missing everyone in the UK already, it's nice to be home again. Suitcases are emptied, washing is done.  Just need to iron it all now - not happening!!  My craft room is a tip, I've not unpacked all my new goodies yet, or the stuff I took across with me!  I've got loads of ideas of things I want to do craft wise, and loads of new stuff to play with. I'll soon be back in the swing of things and hopefully posting more on here.  I've lots to share with you.

Thanks for popping by.
See you again soon.

Linda

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