Sunshine and Apples

Well better late than never! Here is my weather inspired DT card for this week's challenge on the Cute Card Thursday blog. Our sponsor for this challenge is Simon Says Stamps - pop over to the CCT blog for all the details.

I've inked up this Belles 'n' Whistles stamp design by Elisabeth Bell, and it's only the second time I've created with this image! My older stamps get put in a box and left on the shelf - I really must get them inky again especially as I've got tons more crafty stuff to make embellishments these days to decorate my creations. I've chosen bright summery colours and found the busy patterned digi paper by Designer Digitals already printed out in my stash - so that was the inspiration for my colour choices. I've coloured with Copics, pricked the edges of the image and the papers to resemble stitching, then embellished with various Marianne die cuts and Nellie's Choice punched bits and pieces. For the card layout I chose the sketch from the Stamp With Fun blog, but put the text on the other side of the image as it fitted there much better. I also added the horizontal strip of die cut lace - this is a very pretty Marianne die although I do the embossing the old fashioned way with a ball tool so it stand out more - it doesn't take long to do and is easy to guess where the holes are!

Copic colours I used to colour:
skin tones with E000, 00 & 21
hair and basket with YR20, 21, 24 & E35
blues with B21, 24 & 26
greens with G12 & 14
violet pinks with V000, 01, 12 & 15

The For Fun challenge is to use a selection of bright spring colours - at least 3 from the list on the blog. I've got blue, purple, green and sort of yellow on my card.

Thank you for asking how I got on at the hospital, and to answer Marja's question, yes ME is more or less the same as CFS depending on who your doctor is! The classifications overlap and until there is a definitive test, or several tests, to identify what exactly people are suffering from there will be lots of different people with different symptoms all put into the same box.

I am fortunate in that my 'type' of ME has been more to do with my immune systems, although I also get some of the joint symptoms as well but thankfully I am not disabled by them. The good news is that I have been discharged from the care of my ME consultant as he is primarily an immunologist and my immune system is now working more or less normally. But, my auto-immune system is totally up the creek, especially the temperature control bit. I have learnt what aggravates things, and should play by the rules to control the rest of the ME symptoms .. .. but sometimes you just have to let your hair down and suffer the consequences! My energy levels are way below normal and I tire easily, it can take me several hours to do the most basic household chores with lots of stopping and starting - but thankfully I am able to look after myself and enjoy crafting as a form of therapy. Yesterday I was pretty shattered and couldn't even finish putting my card together and I know I have loads to catch up with, but it will have to take time. I'm sending love and hugs to all the other ladies I have met through blogging who also suffer from ME, CFS or Fybromyalgia.