Happy Thursday! And being Thursday it means it’s time for a new challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. It’s also the start of a new month which means it’s time for a change in hostess, and this month it’s Bev’s turn to come up with the challenges. She’s starting us off with a nice summery mix of colours – I think in the hope of coaxing summer along!

Here’s the banner for the challenge:

As often seems to be the case when I’m making cards for the Design Team, my first card didn’t make me happy. It definitely didn’t please my current Critique Board made up of my brother and father. They thought the card was fine, but not Design Team-worthy. I’ll share that one soon so you can weigh in too. Martin suggested using my “favourite stamp” which he believes is the bee. I really do like it’s very cute. Martin’s concerned I’m going to wear it out and should get a spare one just in case! It’s from Garden in Bloom.

I wanted the bower of flowers to really feel as if the bee had masses and masses of flowers to visit. So I decided on a one layer card with the flowers off the edge of the card. First of all I stamped on a piece of scrap and cut out my mask. On my test piece (it became the test after I got an extra ink splodge), I did all the outlines first but then it was hard to match the insides because I’d made a point of turning the stamp in various directions so that the flowers didn’t all look uniform. Oops. On my real piece, I stamped the whole flower at one time. Much easier! The sentiment is from the bonus set from Paper Pumpkin in April, All About Everything. It’s quickly become one of my favourite Happy Birthday sentiments. It’s hard to say what my favourite stamp really is, regardless of what Martin says, but the Garden in Bloom stamp set is definitely one of my favourite sets.

I hope that you’ll go over to the challenge blog to check out the rest of the Design Team’s cards and to have a go yourself. It would be great to see your card in the gallery.

Don’t forget that I’m offering blog candy. Just comment on this post before Saturday and tell me why you like making cards for a chance to win.

Also, although I ordered today, if there’s sufficient interest in another product share, I’ll order again. Just email me to let me know if you’re interested and if so, which shares you’re interested in.

See you tomorrow,

Liz