Longing For Summer...

It is soooo cold here (for me anyway), I know that it will not be as cold as parts of the US or where my friends Cath and Ila live in Canada, but for me it is cold here.... Before Christmas it got colder than it had been for a very long time, we recorded minus twelve in our back garden. How I long for the spring and summer months, even though my favourite time of year is Autumn (I love the colours) I used to love going for long walks and running through piles of leaves that had been whipped up into piles by the gusting autumn winds, of course that was before I got ill. I still dream of doing that and you never know may be one day, but right now I am dreaming of the lighter days of spring and summer... I am rambling as usual... Back to spring and summer, I wanted to make a bright card and so before Christmas when the days and nights were sooo cold I created this easel card, using the beautiful orange, yellow turquoise and green tones from the We R Memory Keepers Madame Royale stack.... I like easel cards as for me, they seem easier to fill, any body that knows me is aware of the fact that I like to decorate every surface, it just does not seem right to leave a blank page and I find it easier to cover an easel card, I do not know why as there are actually just as many surfaces to cover if not more... weird I know.... I figured easel cards were probably the best thing to get me back into card making as you can do so much with them, even change shape by using a different plate on the fold.

My darling husband carried on buying me lots of stash when I took my crafting break, I kind of felt guilty but now I am glad he did, he knew better than me that I would eventually go back to my crafty addiction, he ordered all of the Magnolia kits and this background from the Fairytale Pirates & Princess collection that I just love, he got it from Sir StampAlot, I stamped it on to water colour card I use Windsor & Newton Cotman using Versa fine Onyx Black Ink ( I was lucky enough to get a refill for it last week from Sir StampAlot, the first time I have seen them in at least two years) RAMBLING AGAIN !!!! Anyway I coloured the image using Tim Holtz Distress Inks, then I painted the grass and stalk again in the peeled paint and cut it out so that I could give the picture some more depth... I added the ink painted snail (how much do I love the snail and frog from this set, they are just soooooo darn cute)....I added Time Holtz Rock Candy Stickles to the dandelion (or fairies as we called them as children, we would blow and make a wish...) head and the seeds that were floating in the wind. I had these lovely frames from eBay, from ages ago, that long I don’t even remember when, but I thought they would work perfectly on this card, and as it turned out it was perfect because I used the frame to attach the enamelled greeting tag and the SU Pumpkin Pie ribbon bow, the butterfly looks like he has just landed there for a rest… (Well in my mind anyway...LOL)

I have used some flowers that dear Claudia kindly managed to get for me a couple of years ago, along with stamens and pins from Wild Orchid Crafts. The rest as you can see are of things I love about card making, distressing, stitching and lots of it…. Any body that knows me also knows I have a little habit of not being able to make anything without just a little stitching…

Well I hope you like my longing for summer card; I will list the ingredients below…

Ingredients

SU CS Pumpkin Pie – WRMK Madame Royale DP – Water Colour CS Windsor & Newton Cotman – Versafine Onyx Black Ink Pad - Magnolia Rubber Stamps – Tim Holtz Distressing Inks – Flourish Frame eBay – SU Pumpkin Pie Ribbon – Enamelled Tag K & Co – Pearl Pins, Stamens Wild Orchid Crafts – Flowers, Crystal Swirls, and Pearly Twigs From Stash.