Autumn in Paris.

Julie is my Son Richard's Girlfriend, and I wanted to make a card that tied in with her main present from him, a trip to Paris - lucky girl! I didn't have as much time as I wanted to make this, so it is done in a hurry and maybe not as good as I wanted it to be. The reason for this was that on Thursday my mother in law had a mini stroke, and luckily a concerned relative rang us, and we spent a few hours over at her house finding out what happened, calling the doctor, waiting for the doctor etc. Then we dashed home for a quick and very late lunch while the doctor consulted the practice doctors, before she rang us to say she needed to go to the RUH in Bath for a CT scan.

So we set back off to collect her, after feeding the poor confused dogs, and take her down arriving at 4:30. At 9pm she had undergone examinations, blood tests, ECG, BP checks and was being wheeled off for a chest xray, and still hadn't had the CT scan, and we went home exhausted. 

Yesterday wasn't much better, we spent the morning updating concerned friends and family, getting the shopping that we weren't able to do Thursday done, and after lunch we had to go to MIL's house and find her some clothes and toiletrys, and  a nightdress, and her medication - she was there with nothing at all. Then we went back to the hospital and sat with her for a couple of hours before dashing home for the plumber, and to cook dinner.

Then I made this card very quickly so that Richard could take it with him, and Julie's present is Euros for their trip, I really should have made the card to fit the Euros but when I realised I had started this and was too tired and short of time to change it.

I used a Stampendous Luggage Lables background stamp which has a Paris stamp at the top, stamped with Distress ink in Dusty Concord. I wrapped a piece of black lace round this and adhered it to a blue and white striped card blank, then added butterfly corners (Filigree corners, La La Land die which I won), and an Eiffel tower die cut from silver glitter card with a My Favorite Things Dienamics die. I popped a couple of  mother of pearl heart buttons on, then die cut some Mini Wavy Pennants, also with a Dienamics die, in white and stamped Happy Birthday on them to fly from the top of the tower.

I think I will be safe to post this - I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Happy Birthday Julie!

I found a couple of challenges to enter:

That Craft Place - girls but no pink (Sun)

Vintage Stamping - used purple (3rd Nov)

The Alpha Challenge - W for World and background circles.

Here we go again with the Alpha Challenge 2013.

The Craft Barn set the letter to W and with a twist, there have to be circles in the background. My chosen word was World.

I got out all my circle stamps and had good fun stamping the background, and then used the children holding hands around the Earth as my main stamp, the second stamping got smudged sadly. I wrote in the border circles, that stamp is by Stampendous, other stamps are by MFT and Hero Arts, the globe with the children stamp is by Rubber Stampede. Memento inks and Promarkers.

Live in the sunshine

I love that sentiment, don't you?

The card and main image were all part of an MFT kit I bought a long time ago, and finally I got to use it. It was almost too pretty to use! The stamp is a Who's That Girl which I think may be a retired stamp, but you can still get others in this range, and the "sunshine" with little dog face is from a wonderful set called Congrats all Round, which has many mix and match elements.

I coloured the main image and centre of the Sun image with Promarkers and Trias, and the outer part of the Sun is inked with Memento ink pads.

Now the brief was to use Dienamic dies and I did order some but they are nowhere to be seen, and I realised they must have been on pre-order - sob, but they will be here soon I hope, too late for this card.

I wanted the inside of the card to be pretty too, so more papers from the MFT kit.

For anyone who doesn't know: MFT stands for My Favourite (USA Favorite) Things, who make a great range of clear stamps as well as wonderful Dienamic dies, as well as card stock, buttons and lots more, in fact all you need to make great cards.

I made this card to enter the fabulous MFT contest, I fear it might be too late!