Watering Can Envy

The end of a long hot weekend, enjoyably spent at home in the garden, with the boys splashing around in the paddling pool, and my husband and I taking it in turns to be on playground duty. My youngest demonstrated his inheritance of the 'wind-up merchant' gene from his father by running off with the clean washing fresh off the line, hurling it into the paddling pool and laughing his head off. The eldest however earned some brownie points by bringing some pink roses home for me from a shopping trip with daddy, it's just a shame I put them in a vase with the flower food but without any water. They don't look so happy now. I swear I must have lost a million brain cells since having children. Hope you have all enjoyed your weekend too, sunbathing, barbecuing, enjoying the tennis, or just keeping the little ones from coming to blows over a watering can.

It seems strange to think that you might sit inside crafting on such a perfect weather weekend, however I'm sure many crafters would agree, a regular fix is as necessary as ice lollies in sunny weather! So in-between bouts in the garden, I retreated into my kitchen corner to work on my father-in-law's birthday card. I don't mind sharing this one ahead of the event as I'm pretty sure keeping up with my blog isn't top of his to do list (or even bottom).

It's quite a simple card:

I have returned to one of my first papercraft interests - teabag folding. I was introduced to this form of origami when I lived in the Netherlands in 1995. Dutch tea bags come in paper packets with beautiful designs on them, and folding them into kaleidoscope patterned shapes is such a simple but effective idea. With four dogs, I think it's fair to say my parents-in-law are dog-lovers which is why I have chosen the image below. The design is from 'Teabag Folding 2' by The Crafthouse Press and the pattern is created with a 'square fold'.

I have put a brad in the centre but that has actually made it a little bulky. It was only at the last minute I remembered my fairly new stash of Card Candi (Craftwork Cards) and it would probably have been better with a Candi in the middle but I settled for adding 3 in the corners instead as I love using them. My next dilemma was which direction to put the stripes on the Card Candi... I settled for diagonally....oooh controversial! The beautiful backing/matting papers are from the 'Dreamcatcher' First Edition pad.

Would love to hear from you if you stop by my blog.
Thanks for looking!
Emma x