You know, I thought a few days away would leave me full of ideas and energy for crafting, but it has turned out to be quite the opposite and I have been trying to find my mojo:). I've finally managed to finish up a card with a Fred She Said crocus image that I coloured a week or so back. I't's part of the Spring Flower set with paper pricking frames, a really useful set that you can buy here. 
There are so many love/Valentines challenges around that I couldn't resist making just one more card... Still looking through the box of stamped images I found this adorable House Mouse image. I've coloured it lightly with minimal shading because I'm fairly sure it isn't stamped with a Copic friendly ink, I've had it for longer than I've had my marker pens I think!
Everyone with teenagers will be familiar with money not growing on trees, but this Phindy's Place image shows that, just maybe, love does:). The image is coloured with Copics, Glossy Accents and some Forest Moss Distress Ink around the edges. The card is based on this week's Sketch'n'Stash Challenge, my old stash is the octagon Nestie which I always forget about ans the Indian Summer pad which I found in the drawer. I've stitched around the die-cut shape and also round the dry embossed stripes behind the image. The zig zag stitching helps show the strips as I realised that they are quite a low contrast against the DP which is Basic Grey Indian Summer. The pink card square is torn to add a bit of texture.
My blogging friend Chrissie has introduced me to One Layer Wednesday via her blog and I have entered their challenge this week for the first time. The challenge is to take inspiration from a page of cards designed by Walther Erhard and my starting point was the ornament card to the left. I bought some cheap-as-chips but very good Viva Christmas stamps from Stamp Attic, my local shop a couple of weeks back and I gave them an outing for the challenge. I embossed using 4 different powders and managed to keep the textured card pretty clear of irritating embossed specks:).
I've a friend who loves everything purple and the several non-traditional Christmas colour challenges around inspired me to make a purplicious card for Morag. I started with one of Fred, She Said's pre-coloured Christmas wreaths. Now I love to colour but sometimes, especially when there are a lot of Christmas cards to get finished, it's great to have the work done for me:). I added in a pre-coloured Chickadee, again from Fred, She Said that I mounted on Pinflair glue on my cut out wreath.
We've had many pets over the years, but one that Geoff has always held out against is a donkey :(. I think a donkey would look perfect alongside my Norwegian Fjord horse (and of course the Welsh pony) but hey, sometimes you can't get everything in life! So of course I fell for the donkey image on the new Joann Sheen DVD by Glynn Williams and had to make a card with it! There are special decoupage images on the CD but I simply printed out 3 times and made my own decoupage. I followed the sketch at Pear Tree Designs, adding a leaf border cut with my new MS punch that I bought at the NEC. The sentiment is a Personal Impressions stamp, DP is Papermania and I used my first ever MS punch to make a scalloped border underneath, I think it's called Baroque and it doesn't have the markings to line up that are on the current punches. A piece of raffia and some green gems finished it off, hope you like my donkey card.
This week at Top Tip Tuesday we are having two week open challenge with lots of great prizes on offer from our sponsors. Be sure to check it out and enter! 
This is a lovely image by Mo Manning, what could be better on a sunny day than a good book to read and a quilt to lie on? I based my card layout on Mercy's great sketch from 
Crazy4Challenges and my colour scheme on One Stop Craft Challenge, which wants to see pink and brown projects this week. DP2 has an Anything Goes Challenge (using Mo's images) and Paper Sundaes' Challenge is a birthday card.
I saw some differently shaped easel cards at the weekend at the Craft Barn and decided to have a play with this to enter Mo Manning's DP2 easel card challenge. Digital Tuesday also has an easel card challenge this week and Cute Card Thursday's theme is "Anything but square", which also fits the different shape. Simon Says Challenge this week is a recipe: 1 image, 2 patterned papers (that green is patterned, it's a Basic Grey blotchy), 3 types of embellishment (flowers punched out, tiny flower buttons and gems). Donna's Den of Crafts is a new challenge blog with a birthday theme for its first challenge and my colour combo is from Crazy4Challenges who have light pink, light purple, light green for their colours.
Struggling a bit to get my mojo going again after having a cold, I've reached for those little harbour stamps again that I bought from Hobbyart at the NEC last month, Paper Sundae's Challenge is "Making a Scene" and I just have time to get my entry in. I've tried to make a larger scene this time and not included any boats. Again I've masked the individual stamps to make my scene and I've used Distress Inks to colour them. DP is My Mind's Eye, I thought it looked like fishing nets (as opposed to fishnets LOL).
Tomorrow is our neighbour's Golden Wedding Anniversary. I've been trying - and failing - to think of the right card for them, until DH suggested simplifying and not getting out my colouring pens. Drat, I love to colour :), but he's right, this is much more suitable for them. Here's to Mary & Jack!
