Marvelous Possibilities

  I made this card a few weeks ago when my upline, Kay Kalthoff was hosting our Spring Fling event.  She had asked us to create projects using the All Abloom paper stack, because our guests would be receiving them in their swag bag, and she wanted a display board with ideas.  I had found this clever layout done in different colors, and found it perfect to show off the pretty floral print.  Using the Window Frames Framelits to create the center piece, and wrapping it with bakers twine was so clever looking, and everyone really liked this technique.  I did a little stamping on the background using the Hello Darling stamps and the Thank You salutation came from Lots of Thanks, and the butterflies are from Papillion Potpourri. I thought this would be a fun card to play along with several challenges this week.  The first one I thought of was Just Us Girls Challenge #291 where the challenge was to use twine of any color. The colors in the card and also t...

 Happy New Year 2014!    I know I'm a little late kicking off the celebration, but at least I have not given up on my resolution to get back to blogging again.  I made this cute little calendar a couple weeks ago, I just have not had time to share it with all of you.  I made the calendars to give to the members of a swap group that I participate in every month through the mail  This month I felt that I really owed them a little extra something nice, because I screwed up big time.  I had gone to New York City to visit my son for Thanksgiving, and I was determined to have my swap cards for December in the mail before I left.  I had started them, but the were not completed before I left, but that was no problem, because I would have a week to get them in the mail, when I got home.  However, on my last day in New York I came down with a very bad cold.  I came home and climbed in bed (after a miserable flight home), and I stayed in bed ...

  I had the occasion to make a sympathy card this week, and I wanted to make something special, instead of just digging one out of my stash.  I lost my youngest, and last uncle, Bob, this week.  He died way to young and way too soon, and I will miss him so much.  Bob got sick just after Christmas, and went into kidney failure, and so he was going to dialysis a couple times a week, and things improved, although it was a struggle.  Six weeks ago he told me that he was showing so much improvement that he was going to reduce the dialysis from 3 to 2 times a week.  When I saw him at a wedding 3 weeks ago, he said he was done doing dialysis, because his kidneys were functioning better.  But, last week, when the weather turned nice, Bob went out to putter in his yard a little bit, and took a fall on the steps, hit his head and fractured his skull.  A few days later he died from a bleed in the brain.  Just when we thought things were looking better...

Keeping it clean and simple is kind of a problem for me.  I just enjoy blinging it up so much that even when I attempt simple it ends up more elaborate than I intended.  This card is a great example of that.  I was making cards for a craft sale, and I knew that I wanted some religious cards that could be used for any occasion, and so I took out my Crosses of Hope stamp set.  I have not used the set much, because I am always trying to improve on the beautiful simplicity of the crosses in this set, and make them a little more special with added embellishments.  In this case, I added butterflies from my new stamp set Papillion Potpourri.  I used a butterfly inside as well as a sentiment from God's Blessings (retired).  I also tried a new technique that I found here on using the Framelits to add embossing to the card.  This worked great for framing the cross. I added a few beads and rhinestones to the cross and butterflies for the challenge a...