April Calendar Girls

Carol is our hostess this month.  Here's our theme

As the saying goes April showers bring May flowers....

To me April showers clean the earth of its worn out snow, dust and dirt along with nurturing new seeds and life to our surroundings (gardens, yards, trees, etc). It also, to me signals new beginnings....so for this month I would like for you to create a card that does just that...it could be a wedding card, a baby card, even a New Years card...OR it could be a card that uses something worn out or pre-used and develop a new use for it...ex: mesh bag from fruit...used once to hold fruit: new beginning...used on the card...repurposed.. I know all of you are very talented crafters and I can hardly wait to see what you come up with...

I decided to go with a new baby card.  First I was waiting for my sister in law to find out the gender of her new baby due in September.  I figured I'd get ahead of the game and have a card ready, for September.  That is actually pretty funny because I would never be able to locate it when it was time to use it.  She did find out, it's a boy.  So my little nephew, Austin, will be having a new brother.  He's pretty excited, and so am I.  But after I found out it's a boy, I realized we need to use a Thomas the Tank theme for any baby gift I come up with.  I just don't have the proper Thomas supplies for a baby card.......yet.  So I opted for a girly baby card.  I've been wanting to do some sewing on my cards, and really want to get into some quilt cards.  I even ordered a sizzix die for quilting cards, but that was about 2 months ago and they still haven't sent it, so it's not looking good.  So I thought I would start simple with a patchwork block quilt.  The paper is from an old DCWV baby girl stack.  I stuck them together, added some swirls with an embossing folder and then zigzag stitched the "seams".  The card background is a piece of light cardboard that came with a pack of drawing paper my daughter got.  I thought the krafty color made the quilt stand out a little bit.

Thanks Carol, for such a great theme.  It's so fun to be a "Calendar Girl"

With Sympathy

I needed to make some new sympathy cards.  I know of three friends/acquaintances in the past week that have lost a parent.  Maybe that's what you need to expect when you are almost 45 and all your parents are hitting the 80+ mark, but I just don't want to accept it.  I am so fortunate, lucky, grateful that my almost 80 mom and dad are still in wonderful health and enjoying every day.   This card was the start of a stash for future "needs" but the first one goes to a childhood friend of mine that I lost touch with for 20 years until two years ago when my daughter had a playdate with a bible school friend at a local pool that I'd never been to before.  I was so happy when she came over to me and we started talking like no time had ever passed.  She lost her father yesterday.  I know he was failing and I'm sure it was a relief to her that he is now in God's hands and with her mother who died a few years ago after a horrific battle with breast cancer, but still, she's an only child with no mom or dad here to turn to when she needs that parent advice.  Something that I just can't imagine.

I started with a couple different ideas, one kind of plain and simple, one with flowers, but I've been drawn back to my butterflies.  I've used my ever precious SU cottage wall paper and rich razzleberry card stock for my butterflies.  The big butterfly has an acetate layer too. 

I never know what to say in a sympathy card, but I do like this saying.  I'm not sure the name of the set that it came from.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to get back in the stamp room later and get some more of these made so I'm prepared for the next time.

Unidentified Image

Late again!!!   Here is a card I made for our current Unidentified Image swap.  Our hostess this time was Carol.  She provided this adorable image from Clear Stamps.  I think when kids dress up to perform, it's cute and classy so I went with the black/white/red theme.

I used Cherry Cobbler for the red and my SU embossing folder for a little texture.  Added some glitter to her dress as 1. Carol loves glitter and 2. as a mom of 3 girls, I know they love a little sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by.