June Art Journal Page-Positive Thoughts and Positive News!

Hello friends and welcome to the weekend! June has seemed to go by so very fast and I don’t know how time seems to keep flying by, but I think keeping busy is the best thing to do to stay in a positive mind set. I also have some positive news at the bottom of this post!

Speaking of positive….it’s our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” JUNE prompt of “ABSTRACT FIGURE(S) or SHAPE(S)”:

I didn’t really have a plan in place when starting my page. I happened to remember these fun nesting dies that I had which remind me of a body of water/pond, but I thought they would work great for the “ABSTRACT SHAPE” prompt for this month. I started thinking of a rock or cave with these holes or crevasses where a rainbow light is coming through and a girl is in deep positive thought where butterflies are floating above her.

For the background: I started with a 8.5″x5.5″ watercolor cardstock and the oxide inks in Black Soot, Hickory Smoke and Pumice Stone. I rubbed the ink pads onto a glass surface, sprayed with water and “smooshed” the paper multiple times after drying with a heat tool in a process of about three times. I then stamped the “IMAGINE” definition text all over the background and went around the edges with black ink.

Each die cut shape was cut from a rainbow paper pad that I lined around the edges with a black marker. I black heat embossed the heart and the sentiment above the girl. The girl was cut from a magazine and placed on the largest rainbow shape so that her feet were dangling off. The butterflies were cut from a printed file and attached randomly over the page. Lastly, I covered each butterfly and the center of the heart with a glitter brush pen. You may be able to see some of the shimmer in the photo.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today! Thank you so much for checking out what I’m doing over here! I appreciate your kind thoughts! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – People
Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Text (not one word/greeting)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #116 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards

Positive news! My first grandson was born this week! He’s the most precious thing I’ve ever seen! I didn’t want to leave, so I hope I can come back very soon to see him again!❤️

This is me having a lovely conversation with him. LOL

B is for Butterflies!

Happy Friday my friends! Are you ready for the weekend? I know that I don’t have a regularly scheduled workday every day, but I can still always feel a weekend ahead! LOL Hopefully I can enjoy some time doing some fun projects that I’ve been wanting to get to and go outdoors!

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! We are now onto the letter “B” and the hostess has chosen “B” is for Butterflies (use more than TWO of them.) *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery! Here’s what I’ve created:

I do love me some butterflies! I love using soft pastel colors for the Spring months too! I have used this set before, but I have gotten it back out again for my mini slimline card today. I’ve used the Taylored Expressions Beautiful Butterfly Wings & Coordinating dies to complete this.

I white heat embossed the three wings onto vellum and die cut them out. I also used the die cut to cut out the colored cardstock butterflies for each one along with their center antennas. Glued them together and set aside to work on the layout.

The base of the card is mini slim size of 3.5″ x 6″ side folded. I die cut a white layer with the TE Pettie Scallop Mini Slim dies and then layered another white piece using the Stitched Mini Slim dies. Before I attached it, I splattered some black paint over it.

I then attached each assembled butterfly to the layout design and added the white heat embossed sentiments between them with foam tape. The sentiment came from the TE Fluttering By Mini Strips & a coordinating strip die. I finished by added a rhinestone in the center of each butterfly.

**Just a special attention to the tab pages I’ve added at the top of my blog that shows I now have information about purchasing a handmade card from me as well as another page of craft supplies I have available for purchase if interested. I will regularly update so check back often to see what’s there!**

Thank you for taking the time to stop in and share your support! It really means a lot and I enjoy hearing from you! Whatever your weekend brings, I hope there’s some good in there somewhere!

Challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – #766 Birthday
AAA Birthday – Anything Birthday Goes (Happy 6th birthday!)
Crafts Galore Encore – #135 Anything Goes
As You Like It – Soft or Bold Colors? Why? (I prefer soft tones with calm colors as they seem more pleasing to me)
Love to Craft – #86 Anything Goes

February AJ Collab-You Are Enough

Hello friends! I’m back again today to share some more inspiration with my Art Journaling!

Today starts another AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” February prompt of “MUSIC” (of course!):

Really had fun with this page as it’s got that bright and cheerful background which is a great reminder to yourself especially when the world looks black and white.

I was able to pull out several stash items like the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints, the stamp sets and dies, some of which, I’ve had for a long time and some never used!

For the background: I started with a canvas cardstock 140# measuring 8.5″x5.5″ and attached a music sheet of the same size over it. (I have tons of sheet music ephemera!) I then used the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints to go over it in a horizontal bright rainbow. Once dry, I splattered white paint over it. I also went around the edges with a black paint marker.

The flowers at the bottom came from the Taylored Expressions Botanical Beauty Background (retired), that I stamped in black and colored with cool grey markers. I liked that it covered the entire width of my panel. I used a coordinating die to cut it with and attached to the bottom. I layered a black strip at the very bottom…because I thought it needed it.

Moving to the top of the page, I used a Lawn Fawn Little Heart Strings border die cut out with some shimmer vellum. (I also used the same vellum for the butterfly wings.) I attached this to the top of the page with double sided adhesive strip. I glued down the tiny hearts. This is the first time I’ve used this die because I had to cut it apart! The butterfly dies came from a very old My Favorite Things die set that is no longer available…not sure of the name even. The sentiment at the top over the heart string border came from the Taylored Expressions “You Are” that was white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut out with the coordinating die. I attached it over the border.

Lastly, I used my Cricut Machine to cut out some single music notes in black glossy cardstock and I attached those to the center of the die cut butterflies. I used some black Stickles glitter and put “dots” on the heart strings border, the butterflies and the center of the flowers.

Here’s a song that inspired me for this page:

and if you need to hear this today, just know that YOU ARE ENOUGH too

Thank you so much for stopping by today and sharing your kind comments and support! I read them all and appreciate it! Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – MUSIC
Moving Along with the Times – #175 – Things with Wings
A Cut Above – Anything Goes + die cuts
The Neglected Stuff – #1 challenge (I’ve used musical sheet ephemera, paints, butterfly dies)
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards
Creative Artiste – #112 Anything Goes Mixed Media
We Love to Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media

Butterflies at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! Hope that your week has been a good one for you! Thank you to everyone for stopping by and taking your time to spend with me as I appreciate your kindness.

Today starts the August challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and for this month, our hostess is asking to see a butterfly or butterflies on your projects. I love butterflies and look forward viewing the gallery on this one. Be sure to stop by the blog to see what the rest of the team has created for you. Here’s my project for this challenge:

I like how this one came together! I’ve used several butterfly items from Taylored Expressions. I started with the background by taking the Fluttering Friends Layering Stencil and stencil the colors Sour Gummy, Spearmint & Peaches ‘N’ Cream over a white card base. Once the stenciling was finished, I used the Fluttering Friends 3D embossing folder over it which also impresses the bodies and antenna on them. I layered this over a top folding A2 Spearmint card base. (I also cut out a frame with the same colored cardstock using the Frame in Frame 3 Cutting Plate).

For the butterfly focal, I white heat embossed a butterfly from the Beautiful Butterfly Wings stamp set and cut it out along with the layered wings and body from the Beautiful Butterflies die set. I layered it onto a piece of vellum cut out with the Petite Scallop Circle Stacklets die. I also white heat embossed the sentiment from the Mini Strips-Fluttering By stamp set over Sour Gummy cardstock cut from the Mini Strips die. I used foam strips to pop it up and I also added some rhinestones on the butterfly wings.

I hope you like my inspiration for the challenge and that you’ll take some time this month to create something with butterflies too.

Thank you for stopping in and have a great day!

Challenges:

Cut It Up – #310 ‘Thinking of You’ + use of die cut
The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Wet/Dry Embossing (I did both)
Crafty Gals Corner – #258 Anything Goes optional: Embossing Folder
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Can You Handle the Pressure? – Anything Goes using Embossing Folder optional: wheels
Stencil Fun – Anything Goes using Stencil optional: Summertime
Triple B – Butterflies/Birds/Blooms (I used butterflies)

Creative Artiste Guest Designer with Altered Mixed Media Frame

Hello friends and welcome to May! I’m happy to see this month come with all of the beautiful Spring things that pop out like the flowers and sun with the warmer temps! I look forward to going out and working in the yard soon! Hope that you’ve had a wonderful week and look forward to a great weekend! I’m getting ready for a fun crafty retreat and I’m really looking forward to crafting with friends!

I’m super excited to be a guest for this month’s challenge over at the Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge! If you’ve been around, then you know how I enjoy creating a few mixed media projects once in a while besides my Art Journaling that I do each month. The theme is always “Anything Goes” with Mixed Media, so this time, I decided to make some altered art with an old frame:

I thought this would be a perfect item to alter with a Spring theme in mind. I know the frame “looks old”, but it was actually a really old wooden frame that was stained/varnished about 30 years ago! I’ve sanded, painted, added some crackling paste, and painted over it some more to give it a Vintage “falling apart” look. I like the texture and the crackling from the paste that came out in it. The total frame size is about 9″x13″ and it’s shown hanging on my wall.

The center of the frame was done using a piece of cardboard sized to fit inside the frame. (I threw out the glass front as I didn’t have a need for it.) I had some papers that I thought was so pretty along with the sentiment. The sentiment was way too large for a card and I thought it would work great for this project. Of course, the size of the paper wasn’t quite large enough, so I worked on collaging some musical papers around the edges for a border. I also went over it with a floral stencil and paste, paint splatters and waterproof ink before inserting behind the frame.

Here’s a closer look at the top of the frame where you can see that I’ve added a butterfly ephemera that was painted with some clear glitter paint and attached next to the sentiment with glue and foam dots on the wings.

I have tons of flowers in my stash, so I’ve created an arrangement along the frame with a vine and different sized flowers that I’ve added with twirled vines. I’ve used more paint and even some art stones around the flowers as well as various places over the background for texture and interest. More paints and metallic wax was used over all of these places to keep the Vintage feel to the design. I tried to keep them coordinated with the papers in the background. (It’s weird how the colors vary so much when you take a photo compared to what it looks in person. The top frame photo looks more blue, but it’s actually more this muted green color.)

And as you scroll down to the bottom of the frame, you see I have this 3D arrangement with the painted chicken wire against the back panel with the papers. (the flowers were added on top of that.) On the bottom left you see I’ve made a “nest” for my bird with Spanish moss and even added a couple of twigs from my backyard underneath it. I’ve also added a pinch of green moss in there which is also what I’ve used over top of the white picket fence section to the bottom right. It actually sticks out in front of the flowers.

You can also see where I’ve added some more art stones and paints. I’ve finished the whole design with some Finnabair white gold metallic wax. This is hard to capture unless you get really close, but it adds a wonderful detail that brings out lots of the texture in your finished piece.

I really enjoyed creating this altered frame while I was thinking about Spring coming to life outside! It was also fun to be able to find something I’ve had for so many years and give it some new life! I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well and I look forward to seeing what mixed media art you make this month for the challenge!

Thanks for dropping in today!

Challenges:

Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes (NO CARDS) challenges are back after 4 years!
Crafting Happiness – Flowers
Pearly Sparkles – Anything BUT a card
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Paint It!
Love to Craft – Anything Goes

March AJ Page-FLY

Hello friends! Officially Spring has sprung, but I’m seeing some possible snow still in the forecast! BLAH! I sure how as we finish up this month, that April will be a little kinder to us over here. With all of this weird weather in all different directions, I do hope that you’re staying safe and enjoying some craft time!

Speaking of craft time- If you’re not familiar, I post an AJ page each month along with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), as we get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles! We use a prompt each month and post them. I know she will have wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too! Here’s my AJ page for this month with the “SMASH OUR STASH” March prompt of “Find something/anything GREEN to use on your page” :

Thinking that I was REALLY in the mood to start seeing some green, I started digging through my stash and found SO MANY green things! I didn’t realize that all you really need is a color to have so many different items to pull from! I’m happy with all of the green items I found as I used several of them for my layout here. I’ve got green paint, texture paste, metallic spray, flowers, lace, button, butterfly ephemera and green glitter Stickles! I’m thinking I don’t use green enough, so I went with a monochromatic page.

For the background: I started with some printed vellum attached with collage medium and went over top with a soft green layer. I used an old stencil and went over the two corners with green paste. I then sprayed some green metallic over those two colors and moved it around with water until dry. I splattered some white ink over top and set to dry.

Vicki-AJpageMar-Flybottom

I added green lace on the right bottom along with my scallop chipboard square that I painted white and added some papers behind it. I used those same papers to die cut a tag at the top and glued the fairy along with butterfly wings behind her over it. I added the sentiment sticker that was lined out with a black marker and button over it and attached a string to the hole. This was popped up with foam tape as well as the “FLY” die cut letters inside the white frame. The ripped sentiment was computer generated and sponged with grey ink and tucked behind the white frame. I added some green Stickles glitter to each scallop and tucked some green flowers with gold enamel dots in the center. I also tucked more of those behind the fairy too.

Vicki-AJpageMar-Flytop

I covered the butterfly wings with a glitter brush pen and then splattered some grey ink over top of the wings before attaching them to the page with glue and foam tape… and before attaching the butterflies to the page, I covered up the fairy with a piece of scrap paper and used some gold paint to splatter over the page…and I called it done!

I enjoyed making this page with all of those GREEN things from my stash! I hope you’ve enjoyed it too! Thanks so much for dropping in and have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Anything Goes Art Journal
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Challenge Up Your Life – Monochrome
Beyond the Blue – Green
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
A Place to Start – Anything Goes
Through the Purple Haze – Anything Goes

Smash Our Stash-“Learning to Fly” AJ Page

Hello friends! My fellow U.S. friends will be celebrating Memorial weekend which means that the end of the month is here already! Summer is coming very quickly and it seems that time is really flying by!

The end of the month also brings the monthly AJ page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for more inspiration too! We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of: “ephemera/chipboard/cut-outs, etc.“:

With the AJ prompt this month of “ephemera” my first thought turned to the the H-U-G-E pile of packages that I have of those Tim Holtz Idea-ology ephemera and paper dolls packs. There are actually SO many different pieces in just one package that I decided to concentrate on just one of those packages from the “Botanical” collection. (I did pull in one more layer from the “Snippets” pack as well.) I actually love the images which pulled me in to purchase them, but there they sit and never get used…so I’m using some today! Yay! That “Botanical” pack is my fave with the birds and butterflies in there!

For my page background: I started with my usual 6″ x 9″ watercolor 140# paper with the pre-cut holes at the top for my book. I glued some of the “Tim Holtz Idea-ology Tissue Wrap” ripped pieces over the blank background first. I then took a baby wipe and several colors of “DecoArt Media Fluid acrylics” and blended them together until I achieved desired look. Trying to get another color over top, I decided to pull out the “Distress Oxide Spray Salvaged Patina” after the paint had dried up. To help spread some of it around, I also sprayed with water too. I was pleased with all of the coloring in the background, but felt it needed a toned down border because of the Vintage looking ephemera, so I blended some “Vintage Photo and Black Soot Oxide Inks” at the edges.

At this point, I started adding images by working on the stamping around the edges with a script text stamp using a hybrid brown ink in random places. I also used the same ink to stamp a couple of the flying birds in the background. This is where I thought it would a good idea to add some splattering with white and brown paint. I finished it with more splatters of some “Liquid Pixie Dust” which gave it some pretty subtle sparkle all over.

So starting at top of my page, I decided to start adding the images to create my scene. I ended up die cutting a branch from some dark brown cardstock and attached it to the edge of the page and then took one of those ephemera birds and popped it with foam tape over the branch. I glued the butterfly above the bird and the “daisy” flowers off to the right were glued down while keeping in mind the placement of the large birds at the bottom.

The sentiment came from one of the stickers from the “Tim Holtz Idea-ology Clippings Sticker Book”. I used a brown Micron pen to sketch around it, but decided it was too light, so I went around it again with a black one too.

For the bottom portion, you can see that I’ve glued down the little tag under the title. (I added a piece of twine around it before I attached it.) I also glued the corner floral spray in the bottom left of the page. I’ve used foam tape to pop up the large birds as well as the butterfly above the floral spray.

The last thing I did was to grab the dark brown “Big Brush Marker” to add some shading around some of the ephemera pieces. I didn’t do anything to the pieces that were popped up with foam tape.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Art Journal inspiration today! Thanks so much for joining me and Carol for our fun collaboration and you can always have fun following along with us every month!

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend and please stop to remember and honor those who’ve sacrificed for us.

I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Birds
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media #82
Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Mixed Media
Dragonfly Dreams – Butterflies and/or Flowers
The Corrosive – Anything Goes
Arty Divas – Anything Goes

Classes, Donation and Challenged

Hey friends! Hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend and will be enjoying the first ‘official’ day of Autumn tomorrow!🍂 Yay! I know that this is my most favorite time of the year and today it seems like it has finally cooled off a bit which is very welcoming to give the air condition a break! Decorating for Fall/Halloween is also a favorite thing I like to do along with being outside…so I’ll be doing that this week and weekend for sure!

Today I have some creations that I’ve been working on. The first one comes from a challenge that I wanted to enter along with breaking out a new stamp set, but excited about using an older embossing folder and some paper that has been in my stash for far too long:

He even looks like a wise old owl…and I thought he would be cute with a little bow around his neck too! This is not a ‘new’ stamp set from Inky Stamper, but it’s the first time I’ve broken out to use this Owl stamp set! Their challenge issued this month was “embossing” and so I pulled out a VERY old embossing folder (remember the Cuttlebug days?! LOL) I think it was one of my very first ones! Plus, I pulled out some Coordination’s textured and colored cardstock. It is weathered looking, but when you sand over it, the color comes out underneath…really cool stuff that I haven’t used very much! You can get the coordinating dies for this ‘Owl’ set which also cuts out the owl and the leaf in the set. I’ve colored them up with Copic markers and used the die to cut them out with.

For the embossing folder card front, I took a piece of the Coordination’s paper, die cut it out and then ran that piece through the selected embossing folder and then sanded over it with a sanding block. I also die cut a frame the same color as the card base and took a separate embossing folder from Stampin’ Up! to go over that with and sanded it a bit as well before popping it up on the card front.

Before placing all of the elements on the card front, I decided to add some white and black paint splatters over the background. I also copper heat embossed the sentiment underneath the owl, die cut the strip and popped it up with one of the leaves over top. (You can also see along the edges that I’ve heat embossed too!) I popped up the owl but left him grounded to the frame and then finished it with copper sequins filled with glitter drops. The copper twine bow was a last element decision. LOL🦉

Speaking of sanding, it reminded me of this class I took with Inky Stamper making these cards. (couple weeks ago)

Anyway, the sanding reminded me of this class because at the bottom of the card, the kit included sandpaper for the beach. Really love the look it gave to the design with the texture and tiny bit of sparkle in it!

And the same day I had the class above, I had this class from Craft Fancy during their OOAK event. These were made from their “Alcohol Pearls Butterfly card kit” (I think they have some left in store if interested). The kit came with one alcohol ink color in Celestial Pearls, which is beautiful, but I decided to also add some copper metallic from my stash for another bit of color. I also went on my own a bit with the white heat embossed sentiments at the bottom. I really had fun playing with the alcohol backgrounds and being able to cut them out in one pass for different looks.

I thought this set of four cards would be perfect to add to my donation box to The Butterfly Project in support of domestic violence. So, I was able to send off a batch of cards for that this past week too.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my mixed collection of projects here and I’m sure I’ll have more fun things coming soon! Thank you for stopping in!

Challenges I’d like to enter for OWL CARD only:

Inky Stamper Inkspirations FB Sept Challenge – Embossing (heat or dry)
Let’s Squash It! – embossing folder (Cuttlebug & SU! used on mine) with letters or #s and sand it
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Allsorts – ‘real’ animal/creature
My Time to Craft – embossing (heat/dry)
Splitcoaststampers – SC871 Wednesday Sketch

Working in Washi Encouragement

Hello friends! Happy Labor Day! Can you believe we’re in September already? The time goes so quickly! I’ve been helping my husband around the house so we can finish up some projects before the weather starts getting cooler on us! He does keep me busy since being retired! LOL!

As I had mentioned, although I wasn’t posting on my blog, I was still crafting. I’ve also been trying to organize my craft room with my husband helping me to move things around as my space had really gotten to be over-whelming. Carrying several card kits (many never used) and boxing them up to store, I realized how many things I actually have and never used! It’s fun to buy stuff, but I think it’s even better to use something I have…as I’m becoming my own store! So for this reason, my purpose has really shifted to TRY using what I already have if possible! I know many of us are in the same boat, so perhaps I can help inspire too!

Here’s a set of cards that I’ve been working on from a virtual class that took place sometime in July. It was supposed to be a set of 4 cards created with this gorgeous paper, stamp set and washi tape collection from Teresa Collins (Called “Create a Beautiful Life”). The purple and butterflies really spoke to me, and I got the kit…which I honestly didn’t need, but this is how it’s been! I was supposed to get some already cut butterflies with the kit, which I didn’t…but it was fine, as of course, I had some dies that worked just fine for these cards, and I decided to go off a bit on my own anyway.

Remember the post I had recently done about the washi tape challenge? This is what made me think about this card kit class and that I needed to finish it up! There are a couple ideas in there using some of the pretty washi tape from the TC collection. I think taking all of these virtual classes has taken a tole and burned me out a bit as well because although I’m making the cards (and have a huge stash of them), I usually still have extra product/material to use up too! It sort of compounds the problem and doesn’t really help much. I think it’s just time to consider a heavy freeze on it all! Or at least until some of my stash gets used up anyway! 🙄

Here’s a closer look at each one of the cards in the set. If you’re on my website, just click on each photo below to enlarge it or if you are set up with e-mail, it will probably show in original form. (There’s a caption under each card with the details too.)

The background is made using washi tape.

I stamped some of the sentiments that were included with the stamp set from the collection, but there were also strips at the bottom of some of the pattern papers, so I took some of them and used them for some of the other cards.

I really like how they’ve turned out and this will be a nice set of encouragement cards to send along for my donation box this month to “The Butterfly Project” for domestic violence.

Really hope they were inspiring for you as well and that you’re reminded to use your own stash of papers, washi tape and other forgotten materials too!

Would love to play in these challenges for fun:

Crafty Sentiments – Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
2 Crafty Critter Crazies – Anything Goes + animals (butterflies count!)
The Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes (birthday optional)
Just Us Girls – 6 of anything (Didn’t realize it, but used 6 strips of pattern paper on the last card in the gallery!) Thanks Vicki D!😉

MFT Summer School: Rule of 3 Sympathy

Hello there friends! Hope you’re having a great week.

It seems, unfortunately, that every time I make another sympathy card, I run out and need to make another…it almost makes me hesitant to create another one to build my stash for the fear of it. But as a card maker, I create with my heart and it’s important for me to share that with others and especially in times like this. I know that those people that know me, understand this.

(This post is dedicated to a family friend that has been around since I can ever remember him. RIP Bill)

Vicki-MFTbutterflysympathy

Upon knowing that I needed to create a sympathy card, I had seen that the My Favorite Things Summer School had started and their first lesson was about “The Rule of 3” and so with that in my mind, I went to my MFT stash to create this card.

I first started with a piece of Whip Cream cardstock that was cut out with the A2 Stitched Rectangle Stax die and then stamped the large leafy image from the Dandelion Greenery stamp set with Grout Gray ink 3 times. I also stamped the smaller leaf image 3 times over it as well. I took the sentiment from the Deepest Sympathy stamp set and stamped it with the MFT Extreme Black ink. I layered this panel over a top folding A2 sized Grout Gray cardstock base.

The butterflies were cut out with a die set no longer available…but I love them and can’t part with them! I’ve used the Whip Cream cardstock for the outline of the butterflies, black for the middle sections and then I used: Lemon Chiffon, Tickled Pink and Berrylicious cardstocks for the layers behind the butterflies. I glued the centers only down so that the wings would pop out a bit.

Here’s a closer look at the butterflies and you can see on the colored portion of each of the butterflies that there is a bit of a shimmer on the wings. I took my glitter brush pen to go inside each section of them. I’ve also added 3 Ice Sparkle Crystals to the design for a bit more sparkle.

Vicki-MFTbutterflysympathy-flat

So as you’ve noticed, I took the “rule of 3” quite literally with my design here! It actually helped me to focus on that particular lesson to finish up my card. Sometimes, I’ve noticed it really helps to “challenge myself” with a project so that I have something to focus on when I need to complete a task that would otherwise be difficult if I was just staring at a blank piece of cardstock. Don’t back down from a challenge or anything in particular that helps keep you focused…especially during times like these right now, as it is something that may be of help for you in more ways than you realize! It sure is for me anyway, and I really need it!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope that I’ve helped inspire in some way! Be well and happy friends. I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges: