First I would like to thank Rizzo and the Pink Ladies at In The Pink for selecting my card as a Perfect Pinky. It’s an honour to be recognised.

My friend Holly is amazing. This year she’s run 1400 miles which includes 8 marathons, 4 half marathons and some 10K and 5Ks too.  She has a brilliant method which means that for each training run that she does she puts $5 in a jar for charity and apparently this means that she almost never misses a run. Perhaps I should try that!! Read her blog for more information. She’s on a quest to do a marathon in each state and has done 26 so far. She’s kind enough to say that I inspired her by running marathons (way back in 2001). I think it was a sort of “heck if Liz can run them, I can too” kind of thing. I’m not much of a runner. At least, I don’t look like one. Or rather, I’ll never be fast, but I’ll get there. Eventually. I was trying to run 780 miles this year and didn’t make it (thyroid issues and sinus infections derailed me) and got to 641 which is a record for me. So I’m in awe at 1400. This deserves a card. And the Stampin’ Up! A Happy Thing set combined with Painted Petals seemed perfect.

I know that Holly’s not a pink kind of girl so I figured yellow and green would work. I stamped the lemon from the A Happy Thing set in memento black on some scrap paper and cut it out (it’s not that hard, really) and then stamped it on the card. I used my cut out ( a jig in woodworking terms which I’ve heard a lot of lately with my father visiting. He and my brother spend a lot of time in the basement workshop!) to mask the first lemon and stamp out 2 more. Then out came the blendabilities in daffodil delight and old olive and some silence as I coloured away. I’m not sure why colouring stops you talking, but it does. I used the colour lifter to add some highlights to the lemons. Next I used the sentiment from the Painted Petals – it’s made for Holly! – also in old olive. I mounted the card on an old olive base and I’m really thrilled with how this came out.

Maybe you think that lemons are an odd thing for a celebratory card. But Holly pushes through any issues – fitness, plantar fasciitis and makes things work. So it seems right to me. Congratulations Holly!