Blooming marvellous

Unexpectedly the bank holiday weather was gorgeous and on Sunday we manged lunch and dinner in the garden....to feel sunshine on my skin again felt like bliss. I decided to continue with my gardening that day as it was supposed to be the best day of the long weekend, weather wise.
Just a few weeks on and my plants are blooming marvelously.
My azalea is in full flower

 Even the overwintered pansies and violas are flowering their little heads off.

My aquilega are putting on a pretty show

and I even have a dahlia peeping out

All these blooming marvellous flowers inspired me to go in search for my Craftworks card Candi Flowers which I recently won from the lovely Mars of Craftwork cards. After adding a comment on their blog she sent me some great flowers made from Card Candi. She hoped this might give me some inspiration to try making some of my own.

This is the little package arrived in the post for me a few weeks ago from Mars.

It contained a selection of flowers she had made to to show how versatile card candi is. Now I only have 2 packets of card candi; a pink/silver wedding version, which I used most of for a recent wedding card and a vintage news print type.




I went down the garden to my studio later that afternoon. I got out my crafting sheet and tacky glue and started experimenting with my own card candi  flower making.
For those of you who have not seen card candi this is what it looks like.

and these are the 2 packets I have.


And below is my sequence of flower making for my first ever flower.

And as I was running out of candi I decided to "alter" some prima paper flowers too. Here are some of my finished flowers

I also decided that I would use a few of my "roses"  for a card.......

Here are a couple of close ups;

I really had a blooming marvellous time playing with my card candi and I will be using the other flowers I made very soon.

To make my card I simply used a Cheery Lynn tropical flourish die cut using glittered card and a sweet stamp to finish it off. Another CAS style card for me ;0) I also used some more of my "free" Kraft paper found inside the roll of Christmas paper...there is still loads left!

I would like to enter my card into the following card challenges;

Craftwork Cards I have emailed my entry to their spring flowers challenge
Cheery Lynn Roses #82
Simon Says Stamp anything goes #29
Creative Inspirations anything goes
Papercraft Star handmade flowers
4 Crafty Chicks recycle the craft paper is from the inner roll of a Christmas roll of paper and I cut the flower with a left over piece of card from another project.
Rhedd and Rosie Challenge Blooming lovely

I am also delighted to announce that I have been invited by the I Love Promarkers Girls on their card challenge  blog to be their guest designer for June. Watch this space on a Wednesday to see what I come up with..... ;0)

Thanks for visiting me here today and for all the sweet comments you take the time to leave. The weather has gone back to rain but I am not complaining after such a fabulous bank holiday. I just love being outside in the garden.  I hope your gardens are blooming marvellous too?  Happy Thursday, yet another weekend is just around the corner and it looks as though the sun will make another appearance.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x