Taylored Expressions - Share the Joy Challenge # 46

It was pouring down with rain this morning and Max still had a headache from yesterday (think he's coming down with his millionth cold this Winter..), so we dropped Phoebe at school and spent the day at home. 

This gave me the chance to create a card for the Share the Joy challenge, where I had been eyeing up the inspiration photo all week. Oh how I wish it was strawberry season here!!

So I grabbed my favourite 'strawberry' stamps and my pencils, and went to town:

Talk about berrylicious!! I stamped the strawberries and monkey on some white CS, coloured with pencils and then fussy cut. I then stamped the two balloons, twice each for good coverage and fussy cut those as well. I stamped the sentiment on the white CS banner and then realised it was all looking a bit blah, so I jumped into 'blending' territory....

I blend ink every now and then but usually cover a whole panel, so this was a bit new to me. AND I decided to blend using the same inks I used to stamp the balloons to continue the colour. The inks are from Mama Elephant and are pigment inks, which actually blend really well. I used my mini-blending tool and used the purple ink first. I then got totally out of my comfort zone and added some red to the edges.

I then did something really stupid. I wanted a 'speckled' background so flicked some water droplets on it. As I went to dab it with a tissue I suddenly remembered that I didn't use Distress Ink. Eeeekkk!! It actually worked out okay and as long as I flicked biggish blogs of water and dabbed them really fast, they did remove some of the ink. So that was a crisis averted!!

All I had to do then was stamp the balloon strings. The banner was adhered to the card front and the monkey and strawberry popped up on foam tape. I then did the same with the balloons (after gluing the strawberries in place). There is so much going on with this card, I figured it didn't need any sequins which is amazing for me!!

The monkey, strawberry and sentiment stamps are from Waffle Flower 'Claire' stamp set. The balloon and string stamps are also from Waffle Flower 'Balloon Messages'. 

I'm going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Anything Goes'.

 
Off to get dinner ready while Dave is picking up Phoebe from gymnastics. We have to take Dave to the airport at 6am tomorrow morning, so going to be an early night for us all, and then a long day. He is going to his first ever training thing for work and will be back Friday afternoon. Of course this means he will be able to grab donuts at the airport, so I will be a very happy little piggie when I pick him up on Friday....yay!!

Take care
Shona