It’s been a long time, too long actually.  April 10th, that was the last day I published a post about a hand made card!  What with holidays, work and busy weekends I just haven’t been able to get back into my little crafty room upstairs until now, and I can tell you it felt really good to be back.

So, my card today is a cute House Mouse one for the current House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge who want to see May flowers.  My garden is a mass of flowers right now due to the appalling April we had, there was no Spring like weather until the end of the month and into May really so we’ve ended up with everything in flower at once.  It nuts really but the daffodils are still out, along with tulips, grape hyacinths, forsythia, cherry, apple and pear blossom, bergenia, phlox, orchids, bleeding hearts, viburnum and hellebores to name just a few.  I’ve never seen them all flower at the same time before, and we’ve also been along to the garden centre and bought annuals so the pots of summer bedding are starting to appear on the deck too!  It’s a bit surreal to be honest.  What’s also about to flower in a day or two is the lilac, it has huge tight buds right now but it won’t take long for them to open, so I chose this image for my card.  It’s called Sweet Dreams and was stamped for me by a friend, another cute HM stamp to add to the wish list!

I coloured the image mainly with water colour pencils but also with a few inks too and then liberally added Lavender Stickles to the flower head.  The little butterfly was stamped directly on to the image panel and then stamped again on to pink card, accented with a purple glitter pen and then cut out and stuck over the first butterfly, curling up the wings a little.  The petal backing paper was a 12″ x 12″ sheet that’s been in my stash forever, it’s simply called Rose Petals.  The pale spotty paper is from K & Co Sweet Nectar pad.  The purple, green and pink card is from The Paper Company and I cut everything out with a Nesties die.  *TIP* I also had a light bulb moment too!  I like to mat my cut outs, I think it looks better but my cutting skills aren’t that great.  My light bulb moment came when I put the die on the purple card cutting side up and used a pencil to trace the outside outline and then just cut it out!  Simple yes?  Have no idea why I didn’t think about it before, and I’m probably the last person in the world to discover this but it was an absolute revelation!!  I also traced the die on the back of the card so you wouldn’t see any pencil lines on the finished piece, you could also use patterned paper too just as long as you remember to trace it on the unprinted side.  Amazing huh?!!  I made the sentiment on the computer in Word using three text boxes so I could place the text how I wanted it.

Felt good to be back after all that time away from my beloved stamps and pretty papers!

Card Recipe:

  • Card: Blank from Michaels ~ The Paper Company coloured card
  • DP: K & Co Sweet Nectar pad ~ Rose Petals 12″ sheet (can’t remember the brand)
  • Stamps: House Mouse Sweet Dreams ~ Kathryn White Garden Friends clear set
  • Inks: Memento Purple Hydrangea, Bamboo Shoots, New Sprout & Summer Sky
  • Embellies: Water colour pencils ~ Lavender & Cotton Candy Stickles ~ Prima Flowers ~ Making Memories Brad, Fiskars Glitter Pen ~ Wide organza ribbon from JoAnn ~ Purple ribbon from Michaels
  • Tools: Cuttlebug ~ Nesties Labels Eight ~ Computer & Printer ~ McGill Fern Punch

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Challenges:

House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge ~ May Flowers

Tip Top Tuesday ~ Flower Frenzy

Crazy 4 Challenges ~ April Showers Bring May Flowers