Any Um-ber-ellas, Any Um-ber-ellas

....to Mend Today?
laalaalaa I don't know any more of the song, you'll be relieved to hear.

One of our newest teamies over on The Daring Cardmakers is Mirjam (Miri) who lives in Germany and this week it's her very first time sitting in the dare-setting hot-seat.
Her challenge is very topical....

 April showers bring May flowers!
It seems that the snowy season is finally over as we 

already have had lots of rain this week.
So, this week I dare you to use raindrops, 

puddles, umbrellas, rainbows … on your cards.

So, this week I dare you to use raindrops, puddles, umbrellas, rainbows … on your cards.

I made a couple of cards - and tbh I'm not particularly  happy with either of them - don't you just hate it when the idea in your mind doesn't transfer to paper in the way you'd hoped?

My first card uses a couple of the templates from  Crafty Templates - they are both from the soon-to-be-released set so worth looking out for.
I've used the flower and pot designs from one template and the umbrella  from another to make this card, and a mixture of papers from a couple of recent Quirky Kits

 Materials and Tools:

2 x flower and pot templates, Umbrella template from Crafty Templates

Papers (Various) from Quirky Kits plus a few extras from my stash

Distress Inks for background, Cats Eye ink pads for edging

Green card for plants, scrap of card for layering umbrella onto

Pink and White Polka Dot Ribbon

Umbrella is raised from the background using a box hinge so that it folds down flat for posting

Corner Rounder punch

For the 2nd card I altered one of my old favourite Robo cutting templates. On the original you can only see the hand that is holding the umbrella, and the umbrella itself is in a different position. One of the cool things about using Paint Shop Pro alongside the Craft Robo is that it doesn't take much effort to tweak an existing design.  I added the other hand/arm, and tilted back the umbrella so that there was somewhere to put the potted plant.  The greeting was supposed to be a "thank you" one but I couldn't find a sticker and didn't have time by then to do it on the pc. ;)

 Materials and Tools:

Papers all from Everyday Eclectic 6x6 (Echo Park) 

Flower and pot  template from Crafty Templates

Bazzill card,

Narrow Pink ribbon, Teeny Tiny buttons

Sticker sentiment 

Craft Robo to cut Child with Umbrella, and the Label tab (it's the same label I made for last week's card)

We're having one of those days where one minute it's bright sunshine and the next the rain is pouring down - so being a bit "umbrella-centric" is definitely right for the day.  They say it might get up to about 16 or 17 degrees at the weekend.....about time too....but we won't be holding our breath, will we?

Loads of lovely cards to see over on the Daring BLOG today, so please check them out - and it would be fab if you'd join in and we'd have a deluge (pun - geddit? haha) of cards for Miri's first challenge!
Thanks for visiting