Elodie in her garden

A simple little card to share with you today as I'm still in recovery mode and lacking inspiration for embellishments. I've used a different setting on the camera, but still I'm not completely happy, although I think it's come out a little clearer despite the dull dismal light we have today.

I coloured this Sarah Kay image with Copics in muted colours a while back then when Kim launched Czes' new Country House digi papers I knew the soft rose colourway would work. I've inked the edge of the papers and the image with Spring Pansy Versamagic chalk ink to tie them together then stamped the text and inked that too. I found the little sparkly flowers in my stash so added a touch of sparkle to the butterflies on the circular text with loose glitter and a glue pen. The doily behind the image and around the text are cut with Nellie's Choice flower dies from set #020 and the lace border is another Nellie die from set #028, there's lots more to choose from at Cuddly Buddly here and I think they are great value for money. I've embossed the bigger doily with a Cuttlebug rose folder and finished off punching flowers for behind the little sparkly ones and adding silver pearls with my pearl maker pen. Oh and those little flowers that the water from the can is landing on - well they are from a clear Penny Black set.

Just a few Copic pens for this image, skin tones with my usual E000, 00 & 21. The muted pinks are RV91, 93 & 95. Her top is coloured with BG70 and BG72, then her trousers and hair are warm greys 0, 1, 3 & 5 and I mixed the paler shades with the BG70 for the shadow. There is a touch of E71 and 74 for the ribbons on her hat and that's about it.

The Copic Creations blog are asking what's your favourite paper/card to use with your pens. Mine is a 200gsm bright white smooth coated card from Ryman's Stationers here in the UK. It goes through the printer too and the ink dries straight away so I can get colouring in - and no bleeding. As it is a coated card it's not so good with Distress Inks, they tend to go blotchy, which is why I use Versamagic chalk ink if I want to add a little colour around the edge of my image once I've finished colouring in with my Copics.

The inspiration for my card layout came from the sketch on the Sweet Stampin Challenge blog. I found a challenge blog called the Shabby Tea Room, they have an amazing design team producing some fabulous creations to drool over! This week the theme is for doilies and lace and I wonder if I can enter my card with the paper doilies and paper lace - I hope it will be ok. The Truly Scrumptious blog challenge is for vintage style this week so I'll enter with them too.