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Recently I had my very first order of cards, and more keep coming in. I am so flattered at this, especially as customers tend to give me a lot of freedom to be creative. This must mean they like what I do, surely. It also means I can use the opportunity to fit in with a few challenges. This is one of those cards.

I was inspired by the idea of making your own paper flowers, and had seen a few different techniques which I wanted to put to the test.

Crafty Calender Challenge of 'Flowers in Bloom' seems a perfect challenge to enter for this.

There's also Craft Your Days Away with their Bingo Card. I always find those difficult, I must say, but this time it worked out well on the diagonal from left top to right bottom: flowers, ribbon/lace, and gems. In this card they just formed a natural part of the build-up.

And on a completely different, and very summery note, the Allsorts Challenge is focussed around 'ice cream colours' which appear abundantly on this card as well.

So I would like to enter these three challenges, and keep my fingers crossed the teams like my work. Do you? Please leave me your comments, I love to read what you think.

 
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This butterfly card is one I made for the very first order I received. I was given a lot of freedom, and this is one of the things I came up with.

I would like to enter it into Emma's Crafty Challenge, for which the theme this month is monochrome.

 
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Even though this was a relatively simple and very enjoyable card to make, for the very first time since I have started this crafting, I really ran into my dyspraxia wall.

Having chosen the elements, stuck, dusted and cut the butterflies, and prepared the base card, to go ahead and stick the butterflies on, I then wanted to go and embellish. I had dark blue stars and sequins, and brightish blue roses, and I wanted to stick them on with glue gel. It's always difficult to use this, as there is no cap to put on the end of the tube, so the glue dries up into it. So far though, I have always overcome it with some fiddling and sheer force. 

This time I was beaten by a tube of glue! The thing with dyspraxia is the emotional response that goes with it. The more I read about it, now that our boy has been diagnosed with it, the more I realise I am not alone with this and never should have been. Anyway, the card went flying across the room, and all the embellishments followed behind it.

This morning, as I gathered my courage to get back to it, they seemed to have disappeared. The card was there, but all the fancy bits are missing. Time for a reshuffle. It has turned out more simple, but possibly also more effective.

As I told Emma, one of my dear facebook friends, a great craft talent always ready to support, advise and care, I very much liked this theme of her very first ever challenge: shades of blue. I like the look of monochrome cards anyway, and blue has always been one of my favourite colours. So this one is for Emma's challenge, with which I wish her every success!

Challenge up your Life  happen to have monochrome as their new theme as well. So obviously this card will be entered in theirs too.

Because of the embellishments, and particularly how they came to be there as they are, I am also entering this card in the stamp man's embellishment challenge.

The stamping sisters in christ  are all about Love. When I designed this card it just so happened I had in mind exactly what is described in that challenge as well. That is why I added 'With Love' to a blue card, rather than being focussed on red. When feeling blue, just that little word can work wonders. So that fits nicely into their challenge too.

That closely resembles the thought behind crafty ann's challenge Love is in the Air. There is also this realisation that love is about more than Valentine's alone. So that's another one I am taking part in with this card.

So, a lot of challenges for just one card. Let's hope it is successful.

 
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So here's this morning's make, entirely inspired by the Fab'n Funky Challenge . This is so far from my usual style, and really challenged my creativity, but I am happy with it.

It has a few firsts, my first bit of distressing for starters. I tried earlier on, but made a bit of a bosh of it. Today it seemed to work. I would love to get some feedback from people who know about distressing, whether this is done ok. I have purposefully kept from posting a close-up for know, as really it is the overall impression that matters.

It is a small thing, maybe, but it is also the first time I have curled the paper. I was quite amazed how much difference that made. Those butterflies really came to life, and I regretted having left those two at the top flat, just plain raised.

I used sticky ribbon for the body of the main butterfly, so I am entering the Do You Stack Up Challenge  again. That too is a first: the first challenge I have entered more than once.

Entering the Sweet Stamps Challenge  is another. Stamping in itself still scares me so much. I only tried it once with a sentiment, and that's a while ago now. I think this sweet stamps blog and their challenge may well give me that extra push. Watch this space... 

In any case the challenge is shaped cards, so this should be perfect. Would the distressing be considered a form of stamping? 

Apart from the stamping itself, I also have an enormous threshold for using the promarkers. I feel I need my hand held and taken step-by-step through it. If anybody feels they wish to do that, and have the patience (!), please let me know.

Another new one to me is the Try it on Tuesday Challenge . I am always interested to make cards that are textured, touchy feely, as my son and my father and other males in the family have a visual disability, of which I am a carrier. I had our boy, who is now five, feel his way across this card tonight. He went from the ribbon in the middle, with the smoothness of the gold, and the roughness of the fabric to the gems and the butterflies themselves with his little fingers. He was asking particularly about the gems, I guess they are the most obvious protrusion. On the other hand the intricacies of the black butterfly sticky ribbon, eventhough that is relatively flat, seemed to fascinate him as well.

That's it, I'm off to make some more, now, hopefully. Please do leave me your comments, ideas, feedback.

 
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Another card to raise money to improve the life of this girl who lives with cystic fibrosis, made to be entered into the Crafting for all Seasons (http://www.craftingforallseasons.blogspot.com/) blue and white challenge. Made with peel offs with the darker blue saying 'Thinking of You' as I thought that applies for so many things and might appeal to people to buy it easily when Jackie Newport (Craftyspecials) comes to sell it for her fund.

It was a surprise to me that the butterflies were sticky on both sides, took a bit of working out. Thankfully I had white sparkles from my New Year's HunkyDory stash, which I thought was very effective in adding that litle extra. It is much more obvious in real life than in the picture, as I am sure you can imagine.