Who knew that lemon and pepper could be so sweet?

Well, the Lemon Pepper image from Elisabeth Bell for Whimsy Stamps is sweet. She's downright precious. I am having so much fun coloring my new Cottage Cuties! The latest card is for my Grandma, for her birthday next month. I'm going to visit her in two weeks, and wanted to have the card ready to go. I didn't want to wait til the last minute and then stress, or run the risk that Mr. Mojo would be his usual persnickety self and take off, you know? While he was still visiting, I colored up sweet little Lemon Pepper and decided to show her off on a card. Here she is:

I chose her for more reasons than her utter cuteness. One, her balloon makes me think of celebrations like birthdays. Two, I like the combination of purple with creams and yellows (and since lemons are yellow...well, you get it). Three, she seems to be saying hi to a little bird. My gram loves birds, but especially hummingbirds. So, I used my spica pens to color the feathers like a hummingbird, and used my multiliner to increase the length of the beak a tiny bit. The story of my gram's love for hummingbirds comes from a rather bittersweet place. My dad died in 2002. After his death, this one little hummingbird would come to my gram's window each morning. I can't remember how she could identify him as "hers", but he had some distinctive marking of some sort. Then my gram moved to another house. You guessed it; the same hummingbird found her there (or one with the same markings, but she prefers to believe it's the same little guy). She swears this hummingbird was sent by my dad to let her know that he's okay. Sweet, huh?

So, anyhow, Gram's favorite color is purple, so I figured Basic Grey's Kioshi line would be perfect for her card. The flowers are prima, tickets are Tim Holtz, lace is from my stash, and I used a Whimsy pennant die to cut the banners. I went around all of the papers with my piercing bug. I colored the image with copics. Here's the list, in case you're interested:

Hair: E31, E25, E50
Skin: E00, E0000, R20 (blush)
Grass: YG63, YG67
Balloon: YG06, YG05, YG03
Outfit: E53, E51, E50, V25, V22, V20, BV0000, Y15, Y13, purple spica pen

I'm entering her in the following challenges:
Whimsy Inspiration Blog: Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp: Bingo - flowers, lace, and twine