I am super excited to be participating in the Twofer Challenge at last. The premise of the Twofer Challenge is to use the same die to create two cards for different occasions. The theme for Challenge #14 is Balloons. As you can see I have followed Darnell's lead and gone with the hot air variety. Which gave me the opportunity to finally break open this NBUS die set from Elizabeth Crafts. The above card uses the die set as it was intended, while the card below uses the set in a non conventional way.
It was super super easy to create the umbrella. All I had to do was cut the large balloon body and then place that scalloped flounce die upside down at the point I wanted my umbrella scallops to be.
Once I had the balloon cut, I applied a couple of coats of purple embossing powder and UTEE and sprinkled some pale gold Tempera powder into the molten goo. The raindrops and sentiment are from an old stamp set my good friend Jaine Drake designed ages ago and are unfortunately no longer available. The umbrella hook was from a WPlus9 set but I had to extend the handle slightly so it was in proportion with the canopy. The weather has been very grim here for well over a week now - so much rain and the wind has been howling. We've already lost some roof tiles and I am definitely feeling under the weather! Despite the lack of natural light, I did manage to capture some of the lovely gold on camera though! 
The theme for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Whatever the Weather
As the recipe for Challenge #391 at Less is More is Take 3 and my first card includes 3 clouds and 3 circles I am entering it there.
Lots of snippets were used in the first card so I am playing in Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge #348
