A CASE for Just Add Ink 41

This week's Just Add Ink challenge is to Just Add Birthdays!

The card I have made has been in my MUST BE CASED file for a few weeks now, and is an amazingly beautiful card by one of my blogging friends, Susy.

I told Susy how much I loved her card...and I have gone to great lengths to CASE it (more on that later)! Here is my version of Susy's beautiful card:

List of Ingredients:

Cardstock: Kiwi Kiss (Textured and Plain), Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky and Whisper White (SU)
Ink: Chocolate Chip Classic Ink and Whisper White Craft Ink (SU)
Stamps: Up, Up & Away (PTI) and Birthday Basics (PTI)
Accessories: Grass Die (Die-namics), Old Olive Prints DSP (SU), Butterfly Punch (Carl Craft), pink cherry blossoms (Miscellaneous), Wireworks (SU Retired), Silhouette Machine, Modern Nature Tree and Leaves (Kerri Bradford), Two-Way Glue Pen (SU), Mini Glue Dots (SU), Tombow Mono (Penwa) and Dimensionals (SU).

NOW....did you notice anything different in the Accessories list? Hmmmmmmmm. I used my Silhoutte Machine!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been ogling these little beauties for some time now, and with the Aussie dollar looking as nice (for overseas purchases...not exports, sorry) as it has been of late (and with Susy's beautiful card being the straw that broke this camel's back)...I invested! I bought it from Scrapbook Express in Utah in the US for what I thought was a very good price. I baulked at the cost of the postage (which in my case was another USD84)...but for that cost it went via FedEx in some sort of miracle time-machine. The order shipped from Utah on Thursday...and BELIEVE IT OR NOT...that little sucker was sitting in a warehouse about 20km from my house by 7:30 am on Monday morning (LESS THAN FOUR DAYS AFTER LEAVING UTAH). Now, for some reason it didn't get delivered that day, so I called up the next day and said...'I'm COMING DOWN....please get my parcel ready'...and they did, bless their little hearts :-). So I am the proud owner of a Silhouette, and am still learning all about what it can do. This post (and the associated comments) by Kristina Werner was the thing that helped me choose between Silhouette and Cricut in the end.

Another item that I have used on my card are the beautiful little cherry blossoms (thanks zaki - see comments). They were given to me by my lovely Sister in-law, and she bought them in Japan. The packet is written in Japanese, and since my knowledge of Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji is now non-existent (I did some Japanese about 10+ years ago...but that seems to have been erased from my cerebral hard-drive ;-)...I can't read it, but zaki tells me they are cherry blossoms...here is the packet:

While I was outside I took a quick pic of the garden. It is going absolutely beserk out there with all the rain we have been getting. There are flowers everywhere. You probably can't see on this image, but there are Waratahs in bloom on the far right hand side, Lavender and purple Hebe near photo centre, and a tonne of other pink flowers up the back (whose names I don't know)...not to mention the herbs which are positively exploding out of the bed at bottom left (I should point out that the grass is faux though...it is wonderful stuff, and definitely standing up to the test of time).

...and I want to leave you with one more pic...a big cheesy grin from Mr 4 to you:

Have a lovely Sunday!

(Blogged to: Starlight - The Supermen Lovers, If this Ain't Love - Spiller and Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus).