A crafty morning

I was "gently" awoken at 4 o'clock this morning by DH hearing a mosquito. When he turned the light on, there were about 30 of them whining around the room. They must have got in the window which I had left open on the security latch - just a crack really.

I don't ever remember having mosquito problems in England before. I know that there are 30-odd resident species here, but they have bothered animals more than people. But this year we have waved a thankful goodbye to the tropical and desert mozzies, only to find that the irritating little blighters have decided to move here too. For goodness sake.

4am is not the best time of day to go charging around the house energetically walloping a "feather" duster against the walls and ceilings for half an hour, and then expect to fall asleep again quickly. I am tired. But my body still woke up at normal time and only let me doze for a few minutes' lie-in. Again, for goodness sake.

Card-making is always soothing when the brain is tired but the body is wide awake.

Other god-son's 11th birthday is this weekend, and I understand he is getting a BMX bike. And some Lego, but I'm a bit Legoed out after his brother's card. So I concentrated on the bike.

Basic Grey are asking for "bright and bold" this fortnight, and Stampavie want Birthdays. I wanted to use a Sketch Saturday sketch, but they haven't put up this week's challenge yet, so I used one of their old ones. The image is a digital stamp from edupics, coloured with my faithful Copics. The BG Lime Rickey collection is just perfect for this, and I used the scraps to make a banner inside.

I missed Less Is More's pretty sketch last week which I had a load of ideas for (thank you holiday washing and ironing) but I'm up early for the new "blue and green" challenge. It also fits for Cute Card Thursday's "clean and simple" theme, and Creative Card Crew's "beach/sea" theme. Cute huh?
(ETA: that's a wave)

And here are this fortnight's Twinchies challenge of bright colours. These adorable little woodland stamps were embossed in black before colouring - and I STILL managed to smudge the black with my Copics. I really thought that embossing wouldn't do that, but you learn something new every day. These three will probably go on a card in another bunch of threes. I really like that look.

And now the forecast thunderstorm is breaking (this really IS like the tropics, except about 10 degrees cooler!) and I have to stir my stumps.

Have a great weekend everyone!