A blog award, and a card for a friend

Hello bloggers! I want to say 'Welcome' to my newest followers, it means a lot to me that anyone would want to drop by my little blog and I very much appreciate your support.  It's also great to follow your blogs too, I never tire of looking at cards and projects that people have made.

One recent follower has very kindly tagged me with an award, so a very big thank you to Sylvie of Gibmiss. She has a lovely blog which is worth checking out.

This means I get to pass the award on too. Well, I obviously admire all the blogs that I follow, so I'd give the award to everyone if I could, but as I can't I'll stick to the aim of this award which is to bring unknown good blogs to light rather than ones with a lot of followers, so with that in mind I definitely want to award this to:

Bron of Bron's Creations,

Shree of Shree's Crafting,

Sue of Craftymoone.

Girls, if you want to accept the award then you get to pass this on to 3 to 5 other blogs, and you need to make a blog post with links to the awarding blog (mine!) and all the ones you pass it on to, then let them know you've tagged them.

So, on to my card, which is one that I made for a friend to send her some love and let her know I am thinking of her. I spent a lot of time on this card and put lots of love and attention into it and tried out a few new things too to fit in with some challenges.

The image I coloured in pencils rather than my usual copics, and I distressed and aged the papers with a distressing tool and some distress ink.  I paper-pricked and hand-stitched around the edges of the papers, and the text at the bottom is part of a DP and I added a doily punched border.  The flowers are from my stash and the leaves were made using a punch.  A computer-printed sentiment and a bit of glitter finish it off. 

It's ages since I did any distressing, and after scuffing up the edges of these beautiful Prima Annalee papers that I'd been hoarding I was very distressed indeed! Gulp, it just felt WRONG to do this to such gorgeous designer paper, but I'm quite pleased with the results.

I realised I'd been too wimpy with my distressing tool in the past and not had much effect, but I just went for it this time and really tore those edges up.  I'll definitely use this technique again now that I've found out how to do it properly.

(Sorry about the photos, they look a bit cloudy to me.....must have changed something on my camera!)

Image: Joy from Sugar Nellie's Simply Adorable range

DP: Prima Annalee

Colouring: Polychromo pencils

Others: Tim Holtz Brushed Corduroy distress ink, TH stickles, Martha Steward doily punch, Woodware leaf punch, flowers from stash.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers - Spotlight on Pencils

Crafty Cardmakers - Florals
Top Tip Tuesday - Fabulous Flowers (sorry, had to re-submit my entry as I accidentally deleted my first one!)
Tuesday Throwdown - Distressing
Crafty Purple Frog - Distressing
City Crafter - Sewing
Paper Pretties - Sewing

Enjoy your weekend and happy crafting!

Carole x