let's party at the play date cafe, but don't forget challenge #20!!

It's been busy, busy, busy behind the scenes at the cafe this week and we can now proudly announce our new design team.  They are:

Suzanne Czosek

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby2Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Lisa Somerville

As a senior design team, Julie, Mona and I are saying goodbye to our much loved senior designer Julie Campbell.  Julie has some great opportunities opening up for her but she's promised to keep playing along with the challenge when she can.  We're holding you to that Julie :)

So, to celebrate Julie C's new opportunities, and the new design team, we have a BLOG HOP, with a prize at the end :)  And you get to increase your chances of winning by 3!!

The blog hop starts over at the cafe, and you'll get back to me via Savannah's stunning blog.

Here are the THREE ways to give you the best chance to win:

1. Make sure you stop at each designer's blog and leave a comment.
There are ONLY 9 total so it won't take too long, just limit your browsing time lol!

2. Become a follower of The Play Date Cafe...easy-peasy!

3. Play along with this week's colour challenge

The winner will be chosen by random.org

Julie C has shared with us this lovely bathroom photo for colour inspiration this week.  The colours are

lavender          green          white

There are a few greens in the photo so you can really find your own shade and go with it :)  

I've had a hankering to work small this week so chose to make an ATC using a sketch of some lavender that I did many years ago.  I reduced it on the scanner and darkened the pencil lines before adding dusty concord and crushed olive (yep, that's a new one!!) distress inks.  The butterfly is cut from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  I wanted to give the card a vintage feel as that is Julie's true love!

Now, if you're blog hopping, hop on over to Stephanie's blog to say hi :)  She does such truly stunning cards!

Good luck!!

play date cafe challenge #5

I'm soooo glad Julie C, now known as Jules so we don't mix up the Julie's, has joined the play date team.  I LOVE her work and her blog is a wonderful mix of vintage artwork and gorgeous recipes.

It's probably no surprise that my contribution this week is a journal page!!  I've had a very emotional week re work and journaling really, really helps.  Edit: I've changed the photos, hope these are clearer now!  I used Nick Bantock inks to stamp the paisley images which are by Tanda Stamps.

On the right hand side of the spine are three pages.  The smallest page is grey card.  I clear embossed the image then sponged charcoal grey ink over and around them.  The other images were stamped on white paper and glued to the page.  The page behind is white with images stamped in grey.  And the final page has blue images glued to it.  I really like using different size pages in my journal, and different types of paper and card.