Simply Less is More when using Creative Inspirations and Polka Doodles for a Papertake Weekly Waltzing Mouse!

And now for something completely different...   I KNOW that there are some recipients of my cards who don't always appreciate the time and effort that goes into my creations - this is particularly true of my coloured images.  I am not a fast crafter and I am certainly not a fast colourist.   It can easily take me an hour to decide what to make, an hour to work out the elements I want to use and two to three hours to put it all together - that's a fast card for me.  My  past attempts at CAS cards have resulted either in something that looks as though no effort was made at all or something where the effort is visible but the results are pants!  I so admire some of my blogging buddies - Alex, Jules, Julie, Kerry and Sarita to name but a few who seem to be able to produce classic beautiful elegant creations which err on the clean and simple and wow me to bits and if I don't practice then I figure I shall never be any good at them.
This week Polka Doodles want to see "Flower Power" and Creative Inspirations have the theme "In the Garden" (which I also take to mean flowers).  Papertake Weekly have an "Anything Goes" theme with the option of using something old.  My sentiment is by Stampin Up, is relatively old and has never seen ink before.   Waltzing Mouse have a great "Sketch" and I am entering my first card in the challenge at Less is More who want to see "Pastels".

I used pearlescent card for the base of this Happy Anniversary card and hand embossed an inner square on my Score Pal.  More pearlescent card has been run through an embossing folder with love hearts on it and mounted on some DCWV pastel card stock.  It looks even more pale in the photo, its actually peach like the flower and ink.  My flower is made with pearlescent paper cut with a Nestie's Blossoms die, inked, sprayed and scrunched and the leaves are from an MS punch.  It still took me three hours to make which is ridiculous but I reckon I could do it again in an hour and I really like it.
Postscript, I replaced the photo with one where the middle mount at least looks a bit peachy in the bottom left hand corner.