Doodle Buds Friends for Paper Play Sketches

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday.

Well, Lou and I have just arrived back from our little trip to England.  This was my birthday present :-)  We had a tremendous time and visited some amazing places – including spending the night in a 14th century castle – in the tower no less!  As good as it is to be away and experience new things, it's always good to come back to our pussycats – and our view.  Which, hasn't changed much in the 10 days we have been away… still a whole lot of brown on brown on brown!  Lots of birds have started arriving back in the area though – and we even saw two butterflies today!

As I had a day of vacation left before going back to work, I decided to go and play around in my craft room and got the chance to ink up a brand new set that I decided I couldn't possibly live without – WPlus9 Doodle Buds.  I love this set so much that I created multiple cards with it yesterday 🙂

I saw this great sketch across at a new (to me) challenge site called Paper Play Sketches.  It really is such a cool sketch and I knew that I could use some of the new Fun Stampers Journey DSP that arrived whilst I was away.   I love the spring colors and patterns and used those as the inspiration for coloring my Doodle Buds flowers.

Here's my card:

I stamped and colored each of the flowers and leaves individually and then mounted them onto a stitched rectangle and the sentiment was inked with Elegant Eggplant.  I have no idea why the colors look so cold on this blog post… they look true to life in Lightroom, but when I import them into my blog post – they look really cold… odd!   Anyway, I know you get the idea.

I hope you will pop along to Paper Play Sketches and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards.

On a personal note:

Our stay at the 14th century castle was pretty amazing.  It really is a beautiful place.  The tower room is 112 steps up from the ground floor – and no elevator.  I guess they hadn't heard of those conveniences back then :-)  Although it is called a castle – it is really a medieval tower house.   The walls are 7 feet thick – so cellphone reception was a little iffy to say the least.  The bedroom had a four poster tester ped, a fireplace and lots of red.  The color is a little overwhelming for me as a bedroom color, but it does work with all of the stone.   Want to see a couple of photos?

Look at those walls!  They really are amazing.   One of the cutest things at the hotel was the bear knight on the bed.   Here he is nestled amongst the pillows:

Now… have a look at what the little sign he is carrying says:

Now… as my ancestor was a member of the Knights Templar – I was especially drawn to this little guy and I loved the idea of hanging him up on the door handle instead of the usual "do not disturb" sign 🙂

Now… do you want to see a photo of the castle?  Sure you do :-)  Oh.. and our room was at the very, very, very, top of the tower 🙂

One more thing to share with you… a couple photos of Pedro – the resident peacock.  Who, like all males at this time of the year (think of Roger our resident turkey) seems to be thinking of spring and procreation :-)  and.. just as with Roger…. the peahen wasn't interested in anything he had to offer

Because he failed to mesmerize her with the view from the front – he decided to show her how amazing (and different) he was from the back

Errr… that didn't work either :-)  The only one impressed was the little male peacock who decided he would emulate his more magnificent mate and proceeded to fan his tail…… about 12 inches of it.  Poor thing… 🙂

I'll be back tomorrow with my Addicted to CAS card.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

card recipe:

• stamp:  Doodle Buds – WPlus 9
• DSP:  Fun Stampers Journey
• Cardstock:  Elegant Eggplant Stampin' Up! Xpress-it Copic paper.  Recollections #110 white
• Inks:  Elegant Eggplant – sentiment.  Copic Markers for the flowers