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!
I've coloured with Copics and edged with Dusty Concord Distress Ink. The DP is Basic Grey Wisteria and I've distressed the edges, then inked them. There is stitching around 2 of the papers. I used my new Martha Stewart punch that DH bought me for Christmas to mat the image. There are tiny Papermania buttons on the corners of the image and eyelets in the plain card, which is also inked. The flowers are made from a Little Claire die and the leaves are punched. I added a nice big bow and decided that there was so much going on that the sentiment can go inside the card! One more thing that you probably can't see is that the card has the fold at the LH side. I noticed that quite a few of the landscape layout commercial Christmas cards that we received had the fold to the left, not at the top, and they stayed upright much better. So I cut this from A3 cardstock.
The background card has random stampings of music on it, using Distress Ink. I used a clear Prima stamp and didn't mount it onto a block, I just held it and inked a bit of it, which is something Sarah Anderson showed us on a workshop at Stamp Attic. The white panel behind the decoupage is embossed with a Paisley CB folder, another present from DH. The flower border at the top is MS and the flowers are a Woodware punch, some have button centres and some Liquid pearls.
and I was surprised to realise that I've not used him yet this year. He is a Phindy's Place image, you can buy him here. Isn't he adorable!
We've had a hectic weekend, two days at the races and a house full of visitors, so no crafting has been done at all since Thursday! Here's a fairly quick card I've made for Christmas that I finished last week. It uses a Papermania stamp that I bought at the NEC which is much in demand. It's HUGE! I used Distress Inks to make a background then heat embossed it with purple hologram powder called WOW that was another NEC purchase. It's matted onto black then added to a dry embossed background with some ribbon and a lattice punch strip adding.
This week's Phindy's Friday Challenge is to use either buttons or brads on your project - or both! That's a really easy challenge that fits a multitude of Phindy's lovely images, so let's see lots of lovely entries to the challenge this week. I used a really sweet, vintage style image called Celebrate with Cake, you can buy it here. I followed the sketch from the Truly Scrumptious Challenge and also the recipe at Dutch Dare which is to use 2 patterned papers, 3 colours and 4 buttons. It's a celebration card so it also fits the theme at A Spoonful of Sugar. 
Every time I think I've identified a favourite image from Phindy's Place, along comes another to usurp the previous favourite and this is no exception! Called Spring Breeze, it's a pretty, retro image that can be used for Mother's Day. We've already had Mothering Sunday in the UK but this card is certainly destined for my Mum. Mum always quoted and then misquoted Dylan Thomas about our garden when I was growing up. She changed the quote from Under Milk Wood to "Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And puppies." I'm an only child, Mum far preferred puppies to babies and, to be fair, she bred some very good show dogs:). She's also no gardener, to put it politely.
