Oh Baby!

I have just found out that one of my favourite cousins and his new wife are expecting their first baby. I'm so chuffed to bits for them both. We attended their wedding earlier this year, which was such a beautiful event in Auckland's lovely Cornwall Park. This cousin is my 'twin' cousin, and I've always felt a real affinity for him, so it makes my heart sing to know he and his gorgeous new wife already have a sweet wee bairn on the way.

I need to make a few baby cards right now, as in addition to this lovely news, I also have two cousins that have just had their babies. So you'll see a few 'baby' cards on my blog over the next few days. I've opted for one of my favourite baby stamps from the fabulous Lili of the Valley team for this card. I've been a long time huge fan of Lili of the Valley stamps, my first stamp of theirs was a woodblock fairy. I've so many of their grey rubber stamps now, I'm trying to come up with a suitable storage idea. Hints and tips welcome! I'm thinking of going for a binder with laminated pages that I can stick the U-Mounted stamps straight onto. Not sure how well it protects the stamps though, so if anyone has tried this and has suggestions let me know. Anyway, onto my card. Because I have a few to make, I've gone for a CAS design, which I was really pleased with and coincided with the Passion for Promarkers CAS challenge really nicely. 

I used a lovely scallop edged card as the base and then stamped and coloured directly onto this. I was a little worried about colour bleed as I wasn't sure it was the best medium for alcohol inks, but my promarkers behaved perfectly. I added the sentiment which came with this sweet baby stamp and then finished with a simple doodled border and a coconut husk button. I'd have liked a bigger button, but didn't have anything quite right in a larger size, so stuck with this little one. I wanted to use a button as it worked well for the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge this week. I think the wee button is okay, the card just needed something in that bottom left corner to balance it, so I was happy with that small simple fix.

I had a go at 'masking' the image too, to add the background colour. I know my masking wasn't perfect as it has left an obvious 'white space' where I should have cut the mask a little closer, but actually, for a first attempt, I'm pretty chuffed with this and I think it adds an almost ethereal feel to this sweet image. I used Tattered Rose Distress Ink as the background colour as I wanted a soft finish. It's not a perfect fit for the rather more dusky rose promarker I used to colour this image, but I think it still works and fits with the challenge colours over at 'Less Is More'. The Promarker colour is actually called 'Budding Rose' and is from the Spring 2012 Limited Edition pack. I really love this particular release and have used loads of these pens together recently.

Thanks for popping in today. I hope you liked my CAS card and look forward to visiting you in return, so be sure to leave me a comment so I know you've been. Hugs, Wends x

Challenges:
Papertake Weekly: Anything Goes

CAS-ual Friday: #111 ~ CAS with Buttons
2 Sisters Challenge Blog: #155 ~ Anything Goes
Challenges For Everybody: #26 ~ Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar Challenge: August ~ Anything Goes (I won this challenge - Woohoo! Sweet Prize!!)
Great Impressions Challenge: August ~ Square Cards
Passion For Promarkers: #210 ~ Clean & Simple Cards (I made Top 5 - Woop woop!)
613 Avenue Create: #31 ~ Anything Goes/With Optional Sentiment

Less Is More: #131 ~ Colour Challenge (I picked up on the dusky pink and earthy tones)