Butterfly Memories

Unfortunately, I needed a sympathy card.  I'm hoping this is the only one I will need for a while.  Our area has been very good about "flattening the curve".  I've been at home for three weeks now and have only gone out once for work.

This card was inspired by MFT's sketch 441.  Everything on the card came from my scrap pile.  The stamp was left over on my desk from my having to make 12 sympathy cards earlier in the spring.  The foiled paper was actually white, I had added Iced Spruce Distress Oxide to it months ago and hadn't used it.  I love the white foiled paper for it's flexibility that way.

Wings of a Butterfly

This week's challenge for MFP's Speedy Fox and Friends challenge is to make a sympathy card.  I made a masculine version for you yesterday.  You can see the post here.  I decided that I needed to make a feminine version though.  Today I used blues.   UsING a Night of Navy base and leaving a one-inch dark border, I added a small border of white card stock.  I then started inking my small panel  all over with TH's Stormy Sky.  Faded Jeans was added in an oval around the edges.  I ended by distressing the edges in Night of Navy and adding some of the colour to the edges.  My inked panel ended up being darker than I wanted so I decided to use white embossing for my image and sentiment.  The butterfly is from MFP's "Lots of Words" and the sentiment from "A Walk in the Woods".  I do hope you'll join us because it's hard to make sympathy cards when they are really needed.

Someone Said Goodbye

This week's challenge on MFP's Speedy Fox and Friends is to make a sympathy card.  They are always so hard to make in the moment so it is good to have a few in the wings.  I tend to prefer monotones for sympathy cards.  I decided to go with greens and pulled out "Walk in the Woods" set.  The background is a scrap of Always Artichoke.  I created a one inch border with some white card stock and then made my centre piece just a bit smaller.  I'm really into inking right now and inked the whole centre panel in Pistachio Pudding.  Next I circled the edges, leaving the an oval in Old Olive and finally did the corners and distressed the edges in Always Artichoke.  The stamping of the image and sentiment was the last detail before assembling.  I love how it turned out but it's very masculine.  I want to try the same layout with a more feminine effect.  Please come back tomorrow to see how it turns out.

Flowers and Sympathy

I am so happy how this turned out.  The card is for this week's Simple Salutations to make a sympathy card. I chose to use the flower image from Lots of Words and masked it and stamped it three times in a decreasing pattern in order to get the large bunch.  Simple images can be so flexible.  I can see myself doing this again.  The sentiment is from the same set.  It's hard to see here but I also used a very pale blue to outline the flowers to give them a sense of shadow.

I am also very excited to submit this to the One-Layer Simplicity Challenge to repeat the same image more than once.  I always find one-layer cards to be a bit of an extra challenge, hence why I ended finally dumping my pile of white card scrap in the recycling this weekend.  It was taking over my dining room!

Butterfly Blues

This week's challenge on MFP's Sketch with a Twist is to use butterflies.  I used my Lots of Words set for both the butterfly image and the sentiment.  I'm a little sad because I may only get one more card out of this patterned paper.  Sigh.

Challenges this Card Meets:

MFP's Sketch with a Twist - Butterflies

Amusing Challenge - Anything Goes

Challenges for Everybody - Anything Goes

Crafty Catz - Monochrome

Crafty Creations - Seasonal (I chose summer.)

Creative Inspirations - Stamping

Clear It Out Challenge - Singing the Blues (Yes, it is blue/teal IRL.)

Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Somewhere in my Broken Heart

If you follow my blog, you'll know that I keep and use a lot of my scraps, even small ones.  The pile is getting too big again so I'm playing with the bits.  I'm experimenting with a crazy quilt idea and I can't decide if I love it or hate it.  From a distance it does look cool but not so much up close.  I can't make up my mind.  Feel free to let me know what you think.

Challenges this Card Meets:
Speedy TV's Inspiration Challenge - Patchwork quilt
Oldie but a Goodie  - Inspired by a Song (Somewhere in My Broken Heart by Bryan White)
Papertake Weekly - Paper piecing

Praying for You

This was one of those cards where I was a little disappointed with the end result.  I wanted to do a sketch challenge that included using white, black and silver and saw this uninked stamp from Paper Makeup in my stash.  The doily was out on my table and it fit so perfectly.  They layout required a fancy border for which I don't have many so I tried to make ruffled ribbon and loved the look in isolation.   I would totally try that technique again.  Unfortunately, the black is just too heavy for this card.  It would have been so much nicer in a soft colour.  Light green maybe?  The card should have worked.  Any other time I would have loved how the DP matched the scrolls on the sentiment but right now it just seems off.  I was even able to change the layout of the sentiment to fit on the tag.  Don't you just love clear stamps?    They're so easy to centre.  I love that about the Mark's Finest Paper sentiments.  Oh well, sympathy cards can be difficult and at least I'm not trying to do this when I'm upset.  I'll add it to my stash to be donated to charity.  I'm sure someone will appreciate being able to give a loved one a homemade card when they are going though a difficult time.

Challenges this Card Meets:
Speedy TV's Sketch with a Twist - Black, White and Silver

Falling for You

I was given a small bag of multi-coloured Flower Soft almost a year ago by a friend and have been waiting for the perfect idea to come.  Inspiration hit!  I decided I wanted to make a fall free and used an image from Mark's Finest Paper's, glued over the branches and sprinkled it on.  If you want to make this, I highly recommend you cut your die cut first and not after the fact like I did.  It would be so much easier.

I wanted to participate in the MFP's challenge to CASE a card.  I go by the Splitcoast rules for Copy and Share Everything, which requires you to give credit to the original person and change at least two items.  I chose this card by Debbie Moran.  I liked the tree image but added flower soft.  I kept the paper panel and ribbon but changed the image and sentiment panels from rectangles to an oval and tag. While still a sympathy card, I also changed the sentiment.  I think it would work well for a guy so I'm happy.

Challenges this Card Meets:
Friends of Speedy TV - CASE
Speedy TV's Simple Salutations - Fall/Autumn
Scrapbooking Cafe Online - Fall/Halloween
Crazy for Challenges - Anything Goes with a Fall Twist
Creative Card Crew - Tree

Remember...

I'm so glad I took the time to play today.  Feels so relaxing to play with paper.  The flower was coloured with chalk pastels.  Love the soft effect.  Makes a nice change from copies.  This was the first time I've tried using pastels on a card.  Took two tries.  The ink smeered the first time I sprayed it with the sealant.  Grr.

The inside says "Don't cry because it is over, Smile because it happened."  Dr. Suess  Both sentiments are from Paper Makeup.  The flower is from Mark's Finest Papers.

Challenges this card meets:
Marks Finest Papers - Use chalks
Speedy TV - Paper Piecing - Hard to see but it was done around the edges of the white circle.

Happy Easter

I wanted to make some Easter cards this week which gave me the perfect excuse to borrow this Heartfelt Creations stamp from a friend. The scrolled image is so beautiful that I wanted to keep the card very simple to not detract from it. The cross was stamped in Versamark and then embossed in gold. I coloured the inside with Almost Amethyst. The flower at the centre is also a Hearfelt Creation's stamp called Posy Patch with a matching Spellbinder's Die set that I borrowed at the same time. The ovals was cut with my Creative Memories oval cutter and matted on Pale Plum. I am so going to miss both these colours when I run out. The background was made using my SU French Script backgound stamp to reinforce the writing on the cross. I then used half pearls just to add some bling to flowers and the cross.

I was going to stamp Happy Easter on the inside but I think I will leave it blank for now. Looking at it, I realized it would also make a wonderful sympathy card for someone who was religious.

Challenges this Card Meets:

Creative Inspirations - Easter

Creative Inspirations - Easter (Yes, it's a different challenge blog)

Critter Challenge - Punches or Dies

Delightful Sketches - Easter

Papertake Weekly - Truly Dimensional (My Flower)

Pear Tree Design - Easter