Sweet Peas for a Summer Birthday

Hey there bloggers!! :)

This is a card made for an order from a friend of mum's for a 50th card for her Sister-in-Law. The brief was quite open in the design- 'she loves flowers'- but more specific in the wording. I find that most of the special occasion cards people request include combinations of greetings that you just wouldn't find in the shops, in this case 'For a Special Sister-in-Law' as well as the Happy 50th bit. Have to say, I've had far more complicated things requested and this actually didn't test my stamp collection or my patience nearly so badly as some!! ;) She also wanted the card to be pretty large and so I immediately thought of the one I made for my mum for Mother's Day last year and have essentially remade that design- just with a different focal image and some tweaking to fit in the requested wording:

It's a 10"x7" card blank. The decoupaged image is from a simply beautiful kit I got on sale from C&C/Ideal early last year- the images are the entire front of an almost 7"Sq. card, though in this case there was a border strip which I cut off. I covered the bottom half of the base with half of a purple pearlescent card blank which I stamped with some beautiful Agapanthus style Heidi Grace stamps- which I love to use so much :)- in Brilliance Moonlight White Ink :) The swirls are my equally loved and well used Heidi Grace ones- I have several sets and intermix them all so don't know which is from which!! :S - stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Purple and embellished with Clear Stardust pen for extra oomph!! The greetings are stamped in Brilliance Purple again using Woodware's Mixed Greetings and Family Christmas clear sets with the '50th' coming from a SeeDs alphabet set I got for £1 recently- Whimsy, I think :)

I've taken lots of pics as, with all the different shiny/pearly bits I used, it was hard to get them to come out well so I focused on each bit at a time- hope you won't get too bored!!

The beautiful Sweet Pea decoupage with punched corners and silver mirri behind- got slightly carried away with the Stickles here but I love it being sooo sparkly!! :)

A close up on the pearl card with pearl ink- now this was hard to get a good pic of!! ;) The ribbon is Anita's- the knot ending up over the centre of the flower was a happy accident on mum's card last year but I decided it looked good that way so this time I had to attempt to get the stamp in the right place!!

The HG flourishes complete with Glittery accents :)

The first part of the greeting on an extra little piece of stamped purple card with a Nellie's rectangle of mirri again :)

The rest of the greeting!! Just had to mask off the words to separate them as they come joined together :)

I added and insert and stamped co-ordinating swirls on it and the envelope as, for and extra special card, I think it really finishes it off nicely :)

Are you still with me!?! Don't blame you if not (so much for trying to keep it brief again, less words but tons of photos to upload!! :S) but there are so many things on here that I love- from the topper to the beautiful pearl card and gorgeous stamps as well as the whole thing being in my most favourite colours- that I simply couldn't leave any of the shots out!! Plus, I think I was just so excited that this card came together so well and so much more easily than of late that I couldn't resist getting shots of everything!! I felt so good when I'd finished this card that the feeling's lasted since!! :) :) Makes a lovely change!! :) All that was left at this stage was to cross my fingers that she liked it and decide how much to charge for it- I always feel a little awkward on that front with orders but am coming round to asking a fair price which means more money to Ayme as well as to replace my materials with!! :)

You can probably tell I'm felling a little better than I was last time I posted- thank you for the lovely comments on my last post, they really helped to make me smile and feel better and I really appreciate them :) - so I'm going to attempt to enter this in some challenges this time!! :) I found quite a few so may regret it by the time I've got through linking them all up but here goes nothing!! I'd like to enter it in: One Stop Craft Challenge- A Splash of Colour- Pink, Blue, Green & a hint of Red (in the flower if you look closely, I promise!!) :) ; Crafty Catz- Summertime :) ; Wild Orchid Crafts- Say it with Flowers :) ; Craftalicious- Birthdays :) ; Allsorts- Summer Days (the sweet peas-summer flowers) :) ; Charisma Cardz- anything but a square (I hope my rectangle is interesting enough!! ;) ) :) ; and Stampavie and more- Anything Goes :)

Right, I'm off to link those up now (gulp!!) but now my crafty mojo's at least back in the vicinity (if not always right to hand when I need it most!!) I'll hopefully be back again soon- the next card on my list, which I started last night, is another order for a special birthday so better dig out those alphabet stamps again, I think!! :) Sorry I've still not managed much commenting on all the lovely cards you've posted again- hopefully will be feeling more upto it again soon!! :)

Hope you're all looking forward to a good weekend and thank you so much if you've actually had the patience to stay til the end of this post!! :D

hugs,