Butterflies,bows and bling

Well its been another really busy week at work and im making the most of my weekend, I have managed to finish this card last night and I'm working on another. My daughter is off to the lake district on holiday for a week... I hope it doesn't rain to much, although im sure they will have a great time whatever... it's her first holiday with her boyfriend and without parents, they arranged all of it themselves ,she was really excited, I'm sure they will be fine and have a lovely time. As it was wet yesterday I got to spend some time card making... what else could I possibly do? Housework? Ironing?Hmm... not high on the priority list!

This is my second easel card, I still haven't got the fold quite right and initially it kept toppling over, but it seems to have sorted its self out, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong... but practice makes perfect so my next one is going to be an an easel card too. I had planned to start some Christmas cards as the other half reckons that I could make this years... I'm not so confident though. There are a few stamps that I really want to colour and use first so maybe in a couple of weeks I will start.

I wanted a soft and summery look and tried to colour Tilda very lightly (with promarkers of course) but I couldn't get the effect I wanted, although I am happy with how she turned out. I also did clouds in the background but the camera hasn't picked them up very well. I watched some tutorials on blogs and YouTube and decided to use chalks, I made some stencils for the clouds themselves. I think I need to do it a little heavier next time or use darker shades. I have added lots of bling with gems, glitter and pearls, it may be a little OTT for some but I love it, although I am running out of gems so may need to use less in future until I can go shopping... how am I going to cope?!

Sorry there are more photos than usual... I couldn't decide which ones worked best or had the best angles so I kept them all! Blue is definitely becoming ahead of all other colours in my card collection, it is one of my favourites, although I hadn't realised until I was looking at my cards yesterday how many are blue, that explains why I have so few blue papers to choose from and need to go on a little shopping spree to stock up on supplies. I still have quite a stash and a lots of freebies that I've collected from magazines, but now that I'm making cards on a regular basis a little shopping trip is required.

I used the following materials:-

• Scalloped white base card,blue textured card for layering.
• Papers-blue and yellow floral and butterflies-magazine freebie
• Paper-blue white spot(small)-Dovecraft basic
• Paper-blue white spot(large)-Cool Britannia paperpack- magazine freebie
• Paper-Pale blue with blue spot(on base)- magazine freebie
• Tilda- coloured with promarkers,glitter and white gel pen highlights
• Die cut butterflies and border
• Blue satin ribbon and double bow(two shades of blue used) 
• White satin flowers,grey mulberry flower
• Blue pearls, clear gems and glitter(on butterflies and to decorate 
• Butterfly charm

I would like to enter the following challenges -

Fairy tale challenge #44-pastel /soft colour tones 

Make it Monday challenge#95- anything goes 

Inspire Me Friday challenge #65-anything goes

The poodle parlour- cute and or cuddly

Chocolate,Coffee Cards-challenge~16-anything goes 

Hiding in My Craft Room- challenge#52- freestyle- anything goes 

Speedy and Friends - challenge114- use metal

365 Cards- day120-Sparkle and Shine - use 2 techniques/items 

Little Miss Muffett-challenge#38-Sparkle

willow sketchy challenge-theme-Sparkle and shine 

Fab'n'funky-challenge#127-cute and girly

I Love Promarkers -challenge#123-anything goes