Creative Card Crew #49 - April Showers bring Forth May Flowers

Good morning everyone, and welcome to another challenge from Creative Card Crew. Unfortunately I haven't been able to take part for the past 2 challenges .. 4 weeks ago was semi-planned, and then 2 weeks ago I was rushing round to make my card last minute before going away for the weekend, and I walked into the stair riser and brained myself good style... maybe I knocked a bit of sense into myself lol ... but it still hurts if I press my forehead two weeks later! Also many apologies that I have not been leaving comments - we have been refurbing our study so the PC has been disconnected for about 3 weeks and I have been working on the laptop - it was going v slow when i tried to connect to other blogs and i figured I didn't really have 10 hours to spare to complete all my commenting :-(.

Anyhow .. enough blather and onto this fortnight's challenge, which is a real corker.

April Showers Bring forth May Flowers

Now you can interpret this any way you wish ... you may want to focus on rain, flowers or both!!

To help get you in the mood we have a gorgeous prize for one randomly drawn winner from our regular sponsor

... and it is this gorgeous cute rachel Anne Miller stamp called "Bundle of Joy".

The rest of the DT has truly "made a splash" so I hope you'll go and check out their creations. Here's my effort - I didn't really have any stamps showing rain, so I immediately thought of this darling image of a teddy sheltering from raining flowers :-)

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Rainin' Daisies" (RAK from one of several crafty friends!) - coloured with watercolour pencils, edges distressed with Color Queue "Thistle" ink, and flowers decorated with tiny Papermania gems;
Sentiment: Whiff of Joy;
Paper: Crafty Creations - all edges inked with Brilliance pearlescent ink;
Supplies: Doodlebug "sugar coated" lilac brad; large spacer and butterfly charm from The Hobby House (bought at Aintree last Saturday - met Jill on her stall - how lovely :-) !!); lace was an RAK from Ruby; Papermania lilac jewel gems; lilac plain and gingham ribbons from my stash;
Tools: large scalloped rectangle Nestabilities; Marianne D Creatables "ribbon flower 3" die; Leone Em "Ash branch" leaf punch; Cuttlebug "daisies" embossing folder.

And here's a closeup of the flower. Thanks for the hints and tips people have given me on how to get the paper out of these dies ... I managed rather more successfully this time :-)

I followed the fab sketch at this week's Friday Sketchers #99

and would also like to enter this card for the following other challenges:

Quixotic #22 - Make a Splash
Raise the Bar #15 - Colour Me Happy (one main colour - mine is lilac. Can't say whether it is really my favourite but I'm favouring it right now lol!)
Creative Belli #89 - Die Cut Shapes
Simon Says - Things With Wings (butterfly charm)
Stamp Something - Charmed Somethings
Kaboodle #29 - Embossing
Pollycraft #41 - Make your Own Flowers
A Spoon Full of Sugar #101 - 3D (hope my ribbon flower qualifies)

Hope you're having a good week. Hope to be back later in the week if I have time to play properly with the stash I bought on Saturday at Aintree ;-)