Does any else have those days where electrical equipment around the house seem to be going wrong at the same time? Our Blu-ray DVD player stopped working a couple of days ago, so I had to go and order one on Saturday, ready for after the Bank Holiday weekend – hopefully. Then, the washing machine decided to go wrong, broke, completely, with clothes in it. It started making enough racket that I couldn’t hear myself think, and then when I got to it – in all that racket – I couldn’t remember how to turn it off. Really! Anyway, I managed, and slowly opened the door – thank goodness it wasn’t full of water. So – I had to go and order another washing machine this morning, delivered and fitted and removal of the old one by Saturday. I am waiting for the third thing now. Isn’t that what they say – comes in threes? Talk about an expensive couple of days. I just HAD to go and craft!

This card looks quite simple, but again, it was a lot of die-cutting, and piecing things together. You would think I would have learned after my butterfly card, wouldn’t you? This is a take of the sketch above from Paper Play Sketches. I rotated the sketch 90 degrees anti-clockwise, with the three buildings being the three different length strips, and the two trees and helicopter being the three circles. I was trying to find a sentiment for moving house, or welcome to the neighbourhood – but I didn’t have anything to hand. I may have a hunt around my local craft shops when I go out and buy the third electrical thing that goes wrong!

The dies used are from Tim Holtz Cityscapes collection – the buildings from ‘Metropolis’, trees from ‘Suburbia’, and helicopter from ‘Commute’. These packs of dies have a huge amount of little dies for adding elements – the chimneys, the helicopter blades, the tree trunks – all small, all fiddly, but definitely add to the look.

I cut the buildings and trees out of Kraft card, added the chimneys in a brown card, and inked around the edges with distress inks – ‘Frayed Burlap’ for the buildings, and ‘Pine Needles’ for the trees.

I did think about some background, but I quite like the clean look of the card. Simple and to the point. I wanted the buildings the same colour – I could have gone with different colours, but the simplicity of this appealed to me. Maybe I am going ‘clean and simple’….no – I don’t think so, either. Not completely.