Birthday Card for a Wonderful Friend (& it fits in with my buddy's friendly challenge)

'Morning Everyone,

Yay, it's Friday!  I hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend even if you're not doing anything special.  We're planning a weekend of re-organising 2 of our bedrooms.  They're becoming a bit of a dumping ground for stuff that needs to go back in the loft (like the big pedestal fan that I doubt we'll need again before next summer, lol) and stuff that has nowhere special to live so they need sorting out before it gets out of hand and we end up with nowhere for our Daughter and her family to sleep when they visit, lol!

Anyway, enough waffling and onto the crafting.  This week has seen the birthday of a friend who has become especially dear to me.  Elaine is one of my Craft Stamping Quartet buddies as many of my visitors already know and along with Jo and Judith she has become one of the main 'constants' in my life so making a card incorporating things she likes was such a pleasure to do.  Elaine loves nature and has a huge wild garden with lots of mature trees and I know she loves it in whatever coat it happens to be wearing.  As it's September, I decided to go with an Autumnal look both with the colours I used and also with the leaf embellishments.  Elaine knows one of my favourite things to do is blending inks over masks and as Chocolate Baroque have just started stocking some exceptionally pretty Prima ones which I couldn't resist buying I thought that's where I would start my design.  I followed this with some light overstamping using a stamp from an Inkadinkado set called Autumn Fall which I must have had for at least 2 years and never inked up.  Shame on me because the stamps are really dainty with lovely leafy swirls.

I then blended inks over a sheet of card and cut out the leaves I wanted using a Shapeabilities die set (again in my stash for ages and never used) using the same dies to emboss and then adding some ink highlights.  Another neglected die from my quite substantial collection is the Marianne Creatable doily die,  It's really pretty and I've now managed to use it twice in one week :).  I cut the doily from the same ink blended card and then spritzed this and the leaves with gold Glimmer Mist before stamping the sentiment in the centre of the doily.

 Finally I used a lovely new Crealies die (again from Chocolate Baroque) which consists of separate multi sized petals that you build up to make a flower the size you want.  I used all four petal sizes and cut it from Glassine paper, stamped with the same Inkadinkado stamp but this time in Encore Gold ink and then heated it gently for a few seconds to 'set' the ink into the Glassine.  I shaped all the petals and joined them together with a pearl brad.  I attached the doily with 3D foam pads and the flower and leaves with Pinflair glue.

Now, it just so happens that as I have used a much neglected stamp and two dies to make my card, it fits in with my buddy Judith's friendly weekly challenge called Forgotten Friday so I'm popping over to her lovely blog in a minute to add a link.  I haven't seen her post yet today but there's always something lovely to see so do pay her a visit.  I have to say thanks to Elaine too because I was in such a hurry to get her card in the post (it still ended up being late :( ) I completely forgot to take any pics, lol!  Elaine very kindly emailed some photos over to me first thing so I could do my post.  Thanks Buddy!!!

Well enjoy your weekend everyone whatever you are doing and come visit again soon.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx