How beautiful a day ...

Howdy folks, for me it has been a long time no craft :)  Alas we had to cut our cycling journey short as Neils father fell ill.  So now I am happily settled back, for winter, into the craftroom! However I am extremely excited that come Spring I shall be going on a journey to one of the most  isolated populated places in the world - Pitcairn Island (known for the mutiny of the Bounty) - my family is making the epic journey (14 days on a supply ship to get there and then another 14 days to get back!!) with my mother as it is her birthplace and she hasn't been there in over 50 years!!!
So today I made my first card in over a month and I have to say I am a little rusty especially when it came to colouring ...

 I have combined several challenges - the first is based on the sketch from Annabelle Stamps -

I have used the weather theme from Papertake Weekly 'weather with you' and Cute Card Thursday #266 'can't stop the rain' and also for the buttons, badges and flairs challenge over at Southern Girls Challenge blog ... for this I couldn't find any buttons in my stash that matched so I decided to take the small heart stamp from 'a beautiful day' stamp set and created my own little buttons ... too cute!

materials used - Canson smooth white, smooth red cardstock; My Minds Eye - miss caroline 'dilly dally' papers; Annabelle Stamps 'a beautiful day' and 'dotted flowers' stamps; Staz On jet black ink; Prismacolor pencils; Kaisercraft aqua marine rhinestones; Circle cutter.
Hey thanks for looking and commenting!