A morning surprise and a card

Hi everybody!

I often get woken up early on Saturdays by the parcel postman, who is trying to deliver parcels to other people who aren't home or are still snoring. When my bell rang this morning, I rolled out of bed and stamped to the door ready to beat him into a jelly - at least verbally - and then saw that the parcel was for me! It was a wonderful surprise from Sandy, who sneakily didn't even tell me that it was on its way!  The box was filled to the brim with wonderful goodies:  a huge packet of giant tags (woohoo!), a little votive house building set, a gorgeous tag made by Sandy,  Frantage embossing powders, paper stomps for blending pastels (my finger will be happy about them!), a little block to make an icon, TH paper clip, a glue-stick, 2 gorgeous CI stamps (now I will not be able to make the excuse that I have neither partridge nor pear tree next Christmas), a magazine with a free stamp, glassine paper, tissue paper, painting boards, and a HUGE pile of cardboard. I am only telling you all this to make your mouths water!

And this tag is so gorgeous, it looks like me staggering home with my bags of shopping!

Sandy, thank you sooooo much for your kindness, I always love the beautiful comments you leave on my blog, and you made this old girl really happy with your gifts today!

We had wonderful weather again - cold and frosty but sunny, so I had a long walk this morning, and a shorter one along the Rhine this afternoon, and clocked up 18.000+ steps on my pedometer.

I visited the dilapidated castle again, I am always fascinated by the light and shadows and reflections there, and of course, I needed to take some bread and salad to the ducks!

The rest of the day was spent crafting, working on three different projects at the same time, and none of them are finished yet. The card here is one I made this week for a challenge at Gecko Galz Paper Craft Challenges Group. The image and backing paper are both from Gecko Galz collage sheets, mounted onto some card in a coordinating shade of blue. The birds are from the 'butterflies and birds' and  'beautiful birds' collage sheets, and the background is from 'shabby chic garden 1'. One of the birds has been fussy cut twice, and placed on top of each other with foam pads to add more depth. I added a matching ribbon and some half pearls. I made a seal for the envelope using a digi  from the 'for the birds' did stamp set.

I needed to do something with bold and bright colours!

I am linking to Simon Monday Challenge, Anything goes.

If you have stayed with me to the bitter end, take 10 points, give yourself a pat on the back and go to the top of the class!

Have a great day, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!