The Book Club

Gosh what a bad blogger I've been this week.  It's hard getting back into the routine after having time away, isn't it?  Well, that'll have to do as my excuse, anyway! The only thing I've managed to make all week is my card for today's Daring Cardmakers - and as it's my turn to set the dare it would be a pretty bad show if I hadn't, really.

The Book Club

I'd like you to take your inspiration from Books. You can do this any way you wish. You could make a card in the form of a book, make a background using a page (or scanned page) from a book, use an excerpt from a book on your card as a background or focal piece, or use an actual story/title/book to inspire your card. Don't forget to let us know which book you have taken your inspiration from if you choose to use a specific one.

I have a really bad habit of thinking up what sounds like a good title or subject for a dare without actually giving the tiniest consideration to how I can actually make the card to go with it.  We have a calendar for adding our ideas to - (because if we didn't put them down we'd all have forgotten them by the time our turn came round!) and this one has been written down for a while, and lurking there in the back of my mind without any real plan coming together.  Various favourite books popped up in my head; I really quite liked the idea of doing something romantic and vintage for Pride and Prejudice, but in the end it was good old Winnie-the-Pooh who won the day - the proper AA Milne version with the wonderful EH Shepard drawings which I adore.  I really can't be doing with the Disney travesty!

I just love all the Pooh stories, but chose one of my favourite EH Shepard illustrations as the starting point for this card

 Pooh is trying to steal honey from a bee's nest up in the tree.  He decides to use a balloon to float up into the branches - a blue one to match the sky.  Realising that they would notice a little brown bear on the end of the string he first rolls around in the mud in an attempt to disguise himself as a little black cloud.  Up he goes, calling down to Christopher Robin who's watching from the ground.  I don't think either CR or the bees were very impressed, but I still think it was a pretty good plan, really hehehe

I used:

Broken China Distress Ink for the background and the Balloon,

Balloon and Winnie-the-Pooh are cut with my Craft Robo 

Bazzill card, Ink pads (charcoal, dark blue), Bees cut from some Nikki Sivils paper (left over from a sponsored dare we did for them last year),  White gel pen, Glossy Accents, Bakers Twine (Creative Treasures, Black Enamel Accents, lots of chipboard scraps for adding dimension

It's a pretty simple card, but I was trying to keep faith with the lovely simplicity of EH Shepard's drawings.  I'll save this one to send to my cousin's wife on her birthday as she's a fellow Winnie-the-Pooh fan.

I hope you'll pop over to the DCM BLOG and see what my talented Teamies have come up with this week - and I hope you'll join in with us too.

Right, now I have to go and get my washing hung out to dry, and then, with a bit of luck I might actually get crafty!

Thanks for looking