GDT for Little Miss Muffet, and never a dull moment

A couple of weeks ago the lovely Faye from the Little Miss Muffet Challenge offered me the opportunity to be Guest Designer for the challenge starting today... of course I jumped at the chance :-) It's an Anything Goes theme... Here's my offering

 I took the opportunity to make a birthday card for my niece's little boy... he turns 3 the same day as my darling twinnies turn 1, so I know I'll probably run out of time if I leave it until closer - 28th March will creep up on me, I'm sure :-) 
I used the adorable William With Blocks image, one of the Polka Dot Pals available here; the great thing is (apart from the obvious cuteness!) that it is actually a set of images; there's William with blocks, without blocks and the blocks without William :-)  I made my own little scene up by adding some of the blocks to the picture of William, easily done in Microsoft Word with a little cropping.  I coloured with Copics and Prismacolor pencils, adding some Stickles to the star on his shirt.
The red glittery cardstock I used for the mats is from my stash, I added some Red Stickles to a wooden "3" also from my stash... I can't believe how well they match!  Clear It Out has a Birthday theme and want to see Bling from our Stash... I'm in! and Divas by Design has Make It Sparkle, so I'm  in there too.
The stripy paper is from Kaisercraft and the one with balloons is from a Merci pad.  My Mums Craft Shop has a Spots and/or Stripes challenge, so I'm entering there.  The blocks spelling Nic's name are from a discount store pack designed for necklace making.

I used the sketch from Sketch and Stash this time around, I do like a nice straightforward sketch :-) I just realised I took the horizontal element right across my card - hope it's close enough!  I used the sketch for the inside too - nothin' new in that!  
Crafty Creations and Delightful Challenges want us to Keep It Simple; you don't get much more simple than this little card so I'm entering there.  Colour Me Copic, Through the Craftroom Door and Tuesday Throwdown all have Anything Goes challenges so I'm entering there too.
Well that's it for my card today, thanks again to Faye for having me as your guest :-) Pop over to the Challenge Blog and check out the fab makes - you won't be disappointed.
It was just as well I got my card done early as I had a little mishap with our new under-construction swimming pool - or as my son Chris now calls it "the Crime Scene"; it is half finished (as in the sand is halfway up the outside and the water is half way up the inside) so on Monday evening I thought I would step from the solid ground over the excavation onto the edge of the pool to shine a torch in so we could get a preview of what it's going to look like when the underwater light is fitted - shouldn't have been a problem, we've been in the industry for over 20 years and in my younger days I helped my hubby install literally hundreds of pools requiring stepping onto edge beams from solid ground thousands of times..... of course the primary thing to note here is "in my YOUNGER days"! 

Hubby and Rocky at "The Crime Scene"

I have arthritis now, and it does restrict some of my movement, particularly my hips. I didn't allow for it, failed to bridge the gap, one leg went into the excavation and my momentum carried me over the edge beam into the pool - I was so glad it had water in as I landed head first and would have done some serious damage falling six feet and landing on my head!  As it was I did do some damage.  I was in serious pain in my hip, and ended up in hospital for a couple of days after an X-ray showed a fracture to the neck of my femur.  I thought it unlikely that it was a fracture as I could put some weight on it the next day but had to have a CT scan to check, which failed to confirm either way but showed something else so I had an MRI.  The conclusion is that my arthritis has progressed much more quickly than I thought, knees and spine are Severe and the hip has End Stage OA meaning the only thing left is a hip replacement.  I am technically too young to have one, they are designed for the activity level of a seventy to eighty year old and the concern is that the pain-free me will wear it out too quickly, but the Orthopedic Surgeon says we should start planning for it now and try everything to delay it - including, ironically I think you'll agree, Hydrotherapy!!!  Actually, it was one of the reasons we put a pool in again (after removing our last one 13 years ago!) I find the treadmill and other weight bearing exercises very uncomfortable but swimming is much less so, so good exercise.
So as the title of my post says, there's never a dull moment here - sometimes I long for "boring" lol
I came home from hospital last night, good pain meds, physio and crutches for a few weeks - that's going to slow me down in the help-to-landscape-the-pool-area department!!  We were trying to get it all finished for my hubby's 60th in April, mmmm, we'll see.
I'm trying desperately to get to my DT card for Di's Digis, so hopefully I'll be back with that on Saturday (if not I'll drag one of my drafts out)  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna