Happy 'Bird-Day' to you card

The challenge this week at Birthday Sundaes is to make a birthday card with ribbon on it.  Easy!  They have a great prize up for grabs this week, a set of stamps from 'My Craft Spot' which I would LOVE to win!  I was also very excited to see that they had my 'train-tastic' card as one of their favourites from last week.  Thanks everyone at Birthday Sundaes!  I am really having fun participating in their challenges.  Birthday cards are my favourite to make so I enjoy checking out their website for the new challenges.
 
This card kept changing and changing from how I first imagined it.  At first it was going to be just pinks and greens....then it was on a 6x6 inch card...then that looked strange because the elements were too small...then the pinks and greens made way for these fun colours...anyway after lots of cropping and colour changing I came up with this!  And despite it looking nothing like I first intended, I am happy with the result (and happy that I FINALLY finished it!)

I used this Mojo Monday sketch for the layout of my card:
I loved this sketch and I will probably use it again for other cards.  Mojo Monday have some great stamps up for grabs this week too.  For every 50 entries for the sketch they are giving away one set of stamps.  Hope I'm one of the lucky ones!

I'm also going to enter this card in the Kraft Journal  'Lavish Layers' challenge (thanks for letting me know about it Beth!)  Have just found this site and there are some really gorgeous cards on there.

The papers I used are from My Minds Eye 'Life of the Party' collection.  The bird, circle and scalloped circle are all from the 'Birthday Bash' cricut cartridge - one of my favourite cartridges.  The letter stickers are from Kaisercraft.

Thanks for looking!

Black and White Wedding Card

This is a wedding card that I made using the CPS#238 sketch for the week - I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I love black and white, it's such an elegant combination.  I was going to add just a touch of another colour but I decided to stick to just black and white. 
The bride and groom are from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge and the flourish is as well.  I never really liked this cartridge but the more I look at it the more potential I see in it!
Here is the sketch that I used:

This is my card:

I love these papers - three are from the Crate Paper 'Portrait' collection and another one is from the lilybee design 'This and That' collection.   I'm also really happy with how the lace on the bride's dress turned out.  Now I just need a friend to get married!
Thanks for looking!

Another train card

Hi all,
Thanks for the lovely comments that you have been leaving me on my blog!  Love reading them!
The card for today is another train card (sorry about that, it's quite similar to the other train card I made).  This card is on its way to America to Madison at Funky Cards who is collecting handmade birthday cards for a gorgeous little boy who is turning 2.  His name is Ethan and he has been through a great deal already in his short little life including a rare liver disease and a liver transplant.  You can read all about his story, here.  If you are interested in making a card and sending it over for Ethan then head on over to Madison's 'I feel the love project' site.

Here is the card, I think Ethan will like it!  Little boys love trains!
I got the idea for this card from another blog (sorry but I honestly cannot remember which blog it was).

All cuts on this card are from the Create a Critter cartrige.  The 'Happy Birthday' sentiment is a Kaisercraft stamp.
Thanks for looking!

A non-scrappy post

I am not what you would call a gardener and I certainly don't have a green thumb.  In fact, I have never particularly enjoyed gardening at all.  Most things that I have attempted to grow have since passed on due to thirst or drowning (over-compensating for the things that have died of thirst!)

So you can imagine my surprise and excitement this Spring when I managed to grow the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen (I am a bit biased!)  Back in May my boys, aged 4 and 2, helped me to plant some bulbs.  The bulbs were purchased from a Kinder fundraiser which I felt obliged to purchase from!  The tag on the packet had a pretty picture of the flowers and even stated that they were 'Easy to grow'.  Anyway, every week without fail we went out and watered our bulbs. 

I had no idea how much joy my boys would get from planting something and watching it grow.  They have shown excitement and enthusiasm at every stage of the process from planting, seeing the first sprout, measuring how tall they were getting, spotting the first bud and then of course watching the flowers bloom.  In fact they squealed with absolute delight when the first one flowered ("Mum, come quick.  Look what we've done!") and every day they still go out to check on them at least 4 or 5 times!  I am shocked (and pretty chuffed) to think that we have grown something so beautiful from scratch. 

The flowers are ranunculus, which I had never heard of, but apparantly most people know what they are!  The colours are the most intense, deep, gorgeous shades you ever did see (and the photos don't actually do the colours much justice).  I just adore the ones with all those ruffles and layers, they are absolutely beautiful.  I thought I would share some photos of them with you today and I think I will make a digital scrapbook page to go in our album too.  Hope you like them!

If I was a digital scrapbook designer, I would definitely be making a Spring kit right now with these shades of hot pink, burnt orange, bright yellow....if only I knew how! 
I love Spring!  In fact, these flowers have given me such a boost of confidence that we have even built a vegetable garden - wish me luck with that one!