This is a first ...

I like my top card better in the photograph than I do in person, and I like the card on Aaron's Booth #32 blog better than my second one. LOL.

My cards started with a color challenge on Jeanette Lynton's blog. For this first one, I adapted a sketch from the beautiful new Wishes book. It just didn't come together right for me. Perhaps the background is too much. Maybe softening it with a sponge dauber would have helped . Maybe, just maybe, it will grow on me. Who knows? As you can see, I deviated from the color palette and added a Honey flower center. The original center was Petal, which, in my opinion, was too much of a good thing.

Materials & Tools: White Daisy, Pansy Purple, and Petal cardstock; Pansy Purple, Petal, New England Ivy, and Honey ink pads; Endless Friendship, Intrinsic Backgrounds, Boutique Borders, and Say it in Style Stamp sets; 3M foam mounting tape.

My second card was inspired by this great card by Aaron Brown. Working from memory, my card is different albeit remarkably similar considering how frazzled I was after dealing with/having fun with little ones for several hours yesterday (OK, so now you know I'm human).

Materials & Tools: White Daisy, Pansy Purple, and Petal cardstock; New England Ivy, Petal, and Pansy Purple ink pads; Intrinsic Backgrounds and Say it in Style stamp sets; Buttons from my stash; Retired New England Ivy Designer Ribbon Rounds; White crochet cotton; Cuttlebug w/Swiss Dots and Nestabilities Classic Rectangles set; 3M foam mounting tape.

Although they wore me out, the little guys and I really did have a good time yesterday. After noting in yesterday's post that the casserole I was making was one of Uncle Dusty's favorites, I called him and invited him to join us for supper. It was fun. It was also nice to have someone here who appreciated my cooking, because Bjorn and Mathias were not impressed. It appears they're at ages where they are not very adventurous when it comes to food.

I didn't have any excitement at work today, which was most definitely fine by me. One more day before what will most likely be another fly-by weekend. Yea! We're going to Fargo with Dustin and Miranda on Saturday. Wedding stuff. There will be a lot of wedding stuff in coming months. Fun! Tonight, Marv went to the golf course to hit some balls, so I'm going to hit my corner and see if I can't come up with a card I like... Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the evening.