Friends are special treasures

Ah, I just love this sentiment set - by Hero Arts - spotted on Sandra's blog and it has so many terrific sentiments it's a great favourite here now. Apart from the time making the roses and leaves, this was a quick and easy card to put together, all things considered:

Firstly, I got the idea a good while ago from Bernie's blog for using the wispy feather - and the ribbon/lace/mesh stuff pinched together in the middle is an idea I got from Jules blog. Hmm, with the sentiment as an idea from Sandra - oops, plus the roses from Jules blog and also Sandra's - I ain't coming up with much originality in the components today - but I did pick the colours, design and stuck it all together all on my lonesome :))

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- grey Core'dinations card for the background

- white 'lace' from stash (Hobbycraft) stuck across the grey backing card and tied in the centre with a piece of white cotton before sticking it onto the white card

- white marabou feather and little pearl stems from stash - both from Hobbycraft

- green leaves die cut and embossed using Marianne Creatables 'Roses' die set. The roses were also cut, using dies from the same set and pink two-tone marbled paper

- sentiment from the 'Live Life' stamp set by Hero Arts, stamped using Versacolor 'White' ink pad and then embossed using white embossing powder

Have to admit, I approached the Marianne roses with a lot of trepidation (eeek, a big word) as so many people had struggled with them. I need more practise to be able to wind them into shape properly but I did find a great tutorial which helped oodles, once again on Jules  blog - here's the link. I found it's not easy to wind them all to the same tension if that makes sense, even using a cocktail stick, but hey - roses aren't always uniform anyhow as folk have said. I used Crafter's Pick Incredibly Tacky glue for the first time and it's great stuff.

I'm entering this into the current Make My Monday Challenge 'Flowers and Leaves'. 

Hope you're having a super start to the weekend! The playground closes at midnight and I'll be back tomorrow with the week's roll call and the weekly jangling of the keys to reopen the gates :)

Di
x