A Summer Daydream

It's summertime, apparently.  The weather most of the time would suggest otherwise!  Apart from the odd couple of days of sun here and there, we seem to have been cursed with grey skies and miserable weather on the whole.  6 weeks of 4 bored kids who I can't even take to the park to run off some energy because you can never be quite sure what the weather is going to do next... My elder son has ADHD and to coin a term of his Grandma 'is like Tigger on speed!' and I think if I haven't gone completely grey by the end of the year it will be a wonder.  He's off to big school in September and it will be a break for us all, especially my youngest who is 2seriously attention starved as his big brother hogs it all.  The poor baby is a boy of very few words, mainly because big bro says it all for him - he never gets a chance to get a word in edgeways!  Still, he has words for his favourite things, like juice, banana, kitchen (where the food comes from!) and perfect.  He learnt 'perfect' a couple of nights ago as he was looking at the word on his vest and I said what it was and he started repeating it. I was thrilled!  So now, when I get him ready for bed he waits for me to give him a new word.  Tonight's was 'maiden', which has pleased his Daddy no end as he is a big Iron Maiden fan!

Summertime when I was child was my favourite time of year as it meant a long time off school, always off out with my friends playing out somewhere and getting into scrapes.  I will have to put on my rose-tinted glasses for while and remember the sights and smells of summer - I just remember that there was always lots of flowers around.  I don't think a lot of people seem to have time for their gardens anymore - I know I don't get much chance with looking after the children but there is nothing nicer than a garden in bloom.  My daughter seems to be quite happy to stay indoors drawing or on her laptop which just seems really alien to me as when I was her age, I was never in the house.  She's probably saving up all her energy for going on holiday next year with my sister.  They are going on a cruise now she is finally in possession of a passport :-)

Flowers are very popular in the world of craft too.  The digital stamp I have used for this project is one by Michelle Perkett and is called Daydream Fantasy.  I have had it in my collection for a while and to be honest, I have never used it as I thought it looked too complicated, but today I decided to be brave and give it a go.  I don't have the fancy new fine-tips for my promarkers yet so I just had to be very light and gentle adding the finer detail of the flowers.  I've used carmine and magenta for the pinks and olive and pear green, plus a little saffron and yellow for the hair.  I've used stickles and cosmic sparkles to add a bit of shimmer to the wings and the leaves, in fact I added shimmer to it all!  What you are looking at is actually the front cover of a notebook.  I will be demonstrating how these are done in my next blog post as this is actually the fifth one I have done.  I added a few more flowers to give more of a summery feel in pink and purple.

Just added this extra shot to show the sparkle a bit more :)

And also added this to show that it is a notebook :)

I'd like to enter this for the Craft Your Passion Challenge for Anything but a card.  Make My Monday want to see a Fairies or Angels.