My own Mario

yes Phil managed to fix the boiler himself - what a star! He is awesome at DIY type things  - just another reason to love him really :)

I've not had much crafty time this week despite a few free evenings (oh what bliss) as they have got used up with work mostly! But I had to make time for my Daring card as it was my turn to set the challenge. And when I remembered that I gave myself a good kicking. See the theme is

Flower Festival

because that is what we will be doing at one of my churches next week. And last Saturday I whipped up a group of cards to give to my mum as part of her belated birthday present and ALL of them used flower stamps and I took photos of none of them. Sigh. Never mind, I present you with...

my favourite flower die instead. I used a Studio Calico sketch which explains the pennant on the side. Still not totally sure but it stops it being symmetrical which I have to do with my cards and it annoys me. The papers are all from an Authentique paper pad - Spring I think. The Prim Poppies die was cut from two papers and layered. I also added some Vintage Photo ink to distress the edges; a Clearly Besotted stamp and some pearls of various kinds.

Clearly Besotted is having its first challenge and being a big fan I had to join in

This is the only stamped flower I had left after giving the others to my mum! The flower was stamped onto watercolour paper and embossed with black embossing powder. I used distress inks to colour them in (and realised I don't really know what sweet peas look like!) After discovering the Dear Lizzy flower paper was a fab colour match I spent ages choosing the other pieces. All from Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm apart from the cream cardstock and the orange which is Fancy Pants. The sentiment is Clearly Besotted too.

And as I had a wee moment last night I made this simple card which also features some new CB stamps

I think I need to work on my string placement! But for me to include a fair bit of direct to card stamping is real progress.

Tonight I have been playing around with strips of magnet, paper clips, paper fish and lolly sticks to make a fishing game ready for Messy Church at Brixham. We are going to be focussing on loaves and fish and probably a story about Jesus feeding a humungous and hungry crowd. I have a wedding to look forward to on Saturday and I am a bit nervous about Sunday as we are trying something new at church but most people don't know so don't say anything will you?