Best laid plans

I had all sorts of creative ideas for stitching for this weeks cardmaking Dare 
but ended up with something that looks fairly simple.

 I die cut a stitched heart from watercolour paper I had previously painted to create an ombre effect. Naturally I hadn't checked how big the heart was before painting so the effect is quite subtle as I had to choose light or dark as it wasn't big enough for both.
I cut from within the heart the words which I also cut from white cardstock. I stuck some Stick It paper behind the heart to make putting the white words in but replacing the painted middles easier. I think I put it the wrong way round as it wasn't easier at all. And I had to recut some of the tiny pieces as I kept losing them...

Once that was done and my blood pressure was back down to near normal, I peirced the heart and added some cross stitches. Finally I die cut a wavy stitched square, stuck the heart on. Realised it would have been better to cross stitch through both heart and cardstock.

 Knew it would be disastrous to reverse engineer it, stuck it all down and onto a card with foampad strips.
Which you can't see normally but you can in the sunlight that was pouring in when I took the photos (slightly better here than on the DCM blog) 

I've also done a few layouts for Quirky Kits (details up now or soon on the QK blog) I've used recent Stuck?! sketches for both

 and

 apart from my own dies and glitter glue everything comes from the lovely current Lagom main kit

Our best laid plans did work yesterday (mostly). Phil and I have managed to get back to having the same day off - although Friday still feels wrong after 6 months! I ironed in the morning (I know how to live) but then we decided to go to Evensong at the Cathedral, a meal out in one of the 6 billion restaurants in Exeter and then to see a film. We got our timings off which mean a cuppa before Evensong (better early than late though). I impressed myself listening to the rehearsal just before the service in noting there seemed to be a lot of female voices coming from the hidden at that point choir. Turns out all the children that evening were female! I can't tell you what is different, it just is.

Our choice of eaterie and film venue were down to Phil's taste card which saved us about £15 for the food (Ottoman Grill is a Turkish place which was great. phil tried the fermented turnip juice which was intriguing but may not be ordered again). We also save money by going to the Exeter Picturehouse which is a great place to see a film anyway. We went to see LaLaLand which was good but not as good as the hype and not as good a musical as either of the recent Muppet ones.... (however much, much better than the film of Les Mis) (I have strange tastes i know)