Tilda with Maggie the Monkey at Totally Tilda

*If you're looking for my blog candy you will find it here*

Good morning everyone, I hope you're all having a super Sunday and a wonderful weekend.  I'm feeling much more relaxed today, last week was quite stressful as I had to prepare for a job interview.....for the job I've been doing for almost 2 years.  If that sounds a bit weird, I'll explain.  I came into the job as agency staff and they finally got the go ahead to advertise the job externally (agency staff can't apply for internal jobs), so then I had to apply for my job and attend an interview up against all the others (internal and external) that applied, it was a very strange situation, but I'm pleased to say that not only did I get the post, I was told afterwards that I aced the interview and was placed far ahead of the others based on my interview performance, so now I can relax and just wait for all the paperwork to go through and I'll be in permanent employment with a proper pension and benefits yay!

But back to the reason  I'm here today, which is to share my creation for Totally Tilda. We have a new challenge up on the blog today and one that I love, it's Tilda holding an Animal, Bird or Butterfly.

I had a birthday card to make for someone special, and unfortunately they will see this before they receive it, but I just couldn't get far enough ahead on my makes to allow for postage.  Also ideally the animal would have been a cat and not a monkey, but I didn't have a Tilda with a cat, so a monkey it has to be! I did manage to make the card in her favourite colours though! This is Tilda with Maggie the Monkey, isn't she just the cutest?

I used papers from the Shoreline Treasures collection by Pion, love the subtle muted colours of these, inked the edges in Walnut Stain distress ink and hand stitched as usual with Top Stitch thread. There's a tutorial on how I do this if you scroll down to my previous post. I also popped a little cheesecloth behind my layers to soften the look.

I coloured Tilda in Copics for this card, I went a little darker with the skin to give her a sunkissed look.

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, R20, R11

Hair: E30, E31, E33, E35

Clothes: E51, E53 (and paper pieced) B91, B93 (hair bow)

Monkey: B000, B00, B12, B14, B91, B93, E50, E51, E53, R12

I added some cream lace, cream tulle, pale blue satin ribbon, narrow ivory satin ribbon,  narrow blue velvet ribbon and various WOC flowers. I added a few ivory pearls in 3 sizes. Up on the left hand side I used the Cherry Blossom Branch die from La-La Land Crafts.

The lovely embellishment on the bow is from the Handcrafted Card Company. The Mini Postage Stamp sentiment is from Whimsy as is the matching Mini Postage Die.

Finally I decorated the inside to complement the front, using matching paper and postcard from the same collection. The sentiment inside is from the Life Stuff Sentiments by Impression Obsession.

Do pop across to the challenge blog to see the rest of the team's makes, lots of different styles to choose from and all of them gorgeous.  Our sponsor this week is 

Simon Says Stamp and they're offering our winner a wonderful prize of

So do get your entries in, we can't wait to see your creations.

Well that's all from me for today, enjoy the rest of our weekend and I'll be back tomorrow with my scheduled GDT post for La-La Land Crafts. 

Happy crafting! : ) x x