A Little Lace & Sheila’s Open Garden Day

Hello, Crafters.

I had such a delightfully busy day yesterday! It started the same as every Sunday with Church. It wasn’t Othman’s weekend to be on call, but he was doing it to cover for one of his colleagues. The colleague’s ten year old son was rushed into hospital on Friday. He’s back home now and showing all the normal signs ten year olds show when they’re well, like tucking into ice cream! After Church, I came home and collected Othman to go and visit my friend Sheila’s garden. We knew we couldn’t spend long there because we’d planned it to be his lunch-break!

I met Sheila through Sharon, my manicurist. Sharon put Sheila in touch with me because she was looking for cardmaking classes. Sheila is a very experienced cardmaker but she wanted the social side of going to classes. Sheila opened her garden to the public for the first time yesterday to raise funds for the Royal Marsden Hospital. The Royal Marsden is one of the largest cancer hospitals here in the UK. Sheila’s event was delightfully well-attended. It was difficult trying to take photographs without getting clear shots of any of the visitors, so I aimed my camera along the sides of the garden! The photographs don’t really do justice to Sheila’s stunning garden, but I hope it gives a good representation of it!

We had lunch when we arrived back home, and then I had to work on my monthly subscriber’s email. Once that was done I had to close off my June Hostess Workshop order. I’m really hoping my delivery comes through as quickly as it did last month, so I can get everyone’s happy mail posted before I leave for Rome on Saturday. Before I knew it, it was dinner time! Where did the day go?

I saw a card on Pinterest made by Frechie (I believe), and I knew immediately that I had to use the same technique! I wished I’d stopped and checked out Frenchie’s card properly, because I don’t know if there was more to the technique than I picked up on. After heat embossing her image with Whisper White Embossing Powder, Frenchie partially painted her image with Stampin’ Blends………I think! As I said, I wished I’d stopped and looked at her card in more depth!

I decided to use Stampin’ Blends for my images and used Light Bermuda Bay for all the petals. It’s amazing how, because of how much white embossing there is for each flower, how different the colours look! I used Light Daffodil Delight Stampin’ Blend for the centres of the two flowers. When I was confident the ink was dry, I painted over the flowers with my Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen. After the time I’d spent practising which colours I was going to use, and how the Crumb Cake Cardstock grabbed the ink, this was a very quick card to make.To decorate the inside of the card, I heat embossed the long decorative border stamp with Whisper White Embossing Powder. I was really pleased that there was an area I could paint with Bermuda Bay inside the image! My final touch to my card was to add three Basic Pearls to the front. The ribbon I wrapped around the top two layers is the Bermuda Bay Mini Striped Ribbon. Although there are some great sentiments in the A Little Lace Stamp Set, none of them appealed to me for this particular card. I chose Happy Birthday from the Beautiful Bouquet Stamp Set.

I hope I haven’t been too chatty today, but yesterday was a busy day in a very delightful way! That’s it from me today. I hope you have a great week and I look forward to being back with you tomorrow. In the meantime, happy crafting.

JanB. xx

Products used: please click on any link to be taken to my 24/7 online Stampin’ Up! shop.