Here comes another week!

Morning readers,

Hope you all enjoyed your Bank Holiday weekend, was it my imagination or did it feel a tad autumnal to you too? To say nothing of wet ... but that's pretty typical for a UK Bank Holiday weekend, isn't it?

One of my friends said yesterday that her son was celebrating his 21st birthday! OH MY GOSH ... where does the time go? Doesn't seem long ago I was making "doggy" cards for a young lad and now..... thank heavens I didn't make that mistake for this particular birthday, how embarrassing would that have been? I've just checked .... whilst it didn't mention 21 I do believe it was a suitable (and masculine) card for a young man, rather than a boy - pheww!

And, an update on the cat which adopted us a short while ago, visiting several times each day ... even staying for eight hours one day!! It would appear that, as suspected, it's "carers" have returned home as we didn't see it at all over the weekend, other than a brief visit Friday morning. Whilst we'll kind of miss him ...... it IS nice that it's happy to have its peeps home again! 

Anyhoo, been hitting the ToC this weekend (that's Table of Craftiness) and have a thank you card to share with you today . . . .

My card

And a closer view of the detail

  

The front, back and inside of my card along with the front and back of my envelope

Materials used:

• Cream A2/C6, 250gsm, card and matching sized envelope
• Two pieces of 300gsm cream card, cut to fit 
• One piece of double sided Costco paper (patterned side used), cut to mat
• Snippet of white card, for image panel
• I used an Aldi stencil brush to apply a light layer of Memento bamboo leaves ink to the white card snippet
• Using first a Dutchdoobadoo (470.715.603 "letters") and then Dylusions stencil (DYS52364 "Circles") I applied the same ink through each stencil, using the stencil brush
• Creative Expressions (CEC897 "loopy textures and elements") stamped using the Memento bamboo leaves and London fog inks
• Both Avery Elle sentiment (ST 18-07 "Loads of wishes") and Imagination Crafts (thistle - prob discontinued now they've merged with Crafters Cmpanion) image stamped using Versafine onyx black ink

I'll be entering the above make for the following challenges:-

1. Creative Friday - challenge No. 212 - USE ONLY THREE COLOURS (green, grey, black)
2. QKR Stampede - challenge No. 310 - ANYTHING GOES
3. CardzTV - challenge No. 62 - ANYTHING GOES
4. Aud Sentiments - challenge No. 210 - ANYTHING GOES + A SENTIMENT

And, since it was Rudolph Day just this past Saturday .... my thoughts turned to Christmas cards. I occasionally get asked for "religious themed" cards too - now I don't have a whole lot of images I can use for those but ..... I think this one fits the bill, don't you?

My card

 

The front, back and inside of my card along with the front and back of my envelope

Materials used:

• Cream A2/C6, 250gsm, card and matching sized envelope
• Two pieces of cream card cut to fit
• One piece of navy card, cut to mat
• Snippet of white card cut to 5cm x 9cm, for my image panel and a snippet of navy, cut to mat
• Artistic Stamper image (Victorian Christmas 4) stamped using Versafine onyx black ink
• Inkadinkado Christmas sentiments (from 122552 - I used a different one from the set for the insert) stamped using Versafine onyx black ink
• Faber Castell polychromos pencils used to colour image
• Stardust stickles to bling up the star on the image panel and sentiment

I'll be entering this for the following challenges:-

1. Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - challenge No. 400 - ANYTHING GOES
2. Happy Little Stampers - August Christmas challenge - ANYTHING CHRISTMAS GOES + optional twist - see below
3. Chrimbo Crackers - challenge No. 165 - ANYTHING CHRISTMAS GOES
4. WaterCooler Wednesday - challenge No. 184 - ALL ABOUT HOLIDAYS
5. Creative Inspirations - August challenge - HOLIDAYS

  

We had guests join us for dinner over the weekend and my  hubby (who's a pretty fine cook at the best of times) excelled himself with his Italian menu, here's a peek at pud. Whilst it looks EXACTLY like the photo with the recipe it doesn't look like any tiramisu I've ever seen before! It was LUSH too, but very rich and none of us finished the entire portion! Next time it serves 8! First time we've ever sent our guests home with a doggy bag!