Spring in Paris because it still feels like winter here.

These pictures were taken at my house on Sunday evening. You can see that it still looks like winter here. So it was fun to think of Spring. I even imagined Spring in Paris.

The Unity Show & Tell challenge is to be inspired  by the photo below.

I started with grey paper that had little squares that made me think of the bricks in the photo.
 I stamped the Eiffel Tower from Everyday Fairytales. and flowers from Let Love Grow.
I drew a bike since I didn't have a bike stamp.

It was at this point that I really didn't like my project and was thinking of throwing it in the trash.
My friend Pam and I stamp together with the help of technology. I am always telling her that if she hates a project, it is just because it isn't done yet. So taking my own advice I pressed on.
I decided to use an oval to frame the bike image, So I used an oval stencil to trace an oval onto the panel.

With pearls, glitter, cheesecloth, brads, music notes from  Forget the Past and the flowers from Everyday Fairytale. and more of the flowers from Let Love Grow. and I love how my card turned out. I made it a pop up card. It is going to be going to my sister. Her birthday is tomorrow. So this will be a bit late. BUT I am always late and if she got a card from me early it might give her a heart attack.

I am sharing this Birthday card with SIMON SAYS HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHALLENGE

Here is a video that hopefully shows the glitter a little better and you can see the pop up part.

Autism Awareness Blog

The STAMPING FOR AUTISM AWARENESS BLOG HOP is going on now. I made a fancy fold card in honor of my two boys who are on the Autism spectrum. Both of them are high functioning, but that doesn't mean that they don't have struggles everyday. They both are affected differently but they both love music, so I had to put music on my card. The heart is because they can get quite passionate about certain things. My one son will talk your ear off about Star Wars and the other will talk about Baseball. They don't like being touched and they don't deal well with change (some might call it rigid.) For example Tuesday dinner better be tacos and Friday's dinner better be pizza. To have something else on those nights, would make them so upset that they couldn't enjoy the meal. But the funny thing is those are the only nights that they are that way. But on all the other days they want to know hours in advance what we will be eating and I better not change my mind once I tell them. I love them to the moon and back, but there are days that I wish they didn't have to "Be different" and that other people could see the real them.

Spring Flowers with a fancy fold.

The Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge 208 was to make Spring Flowers. 

and the Splitcoast Stampers Color Challenge 681 

was to use these colors

I made it with a pop out mechanism. with even more flowers. Check out my video.

This card made me happy

I had a lot of fun with the Sweet  Sketch Wednesday 2 (133 sketch)

 

so I decided to make another card using that layout.

TTTC401 Tic Tac Toe Challenge

looked like a fun one. 

I chose to go down the middle.

Flower Gold Twine

The SCS Mixability Challenge MIX 270

went along with my own personal challenge this week to use up scraps on 

the project.(Great minds think alike, Kyra)

I had to throw in another butterfly for the SCS WT681

The last challenge I did was the 

As you like it challenge: Favorite Flower-WHY?

My favorite flower is the chicory flower. I love that it grows wild. In the summer when it is blooming the fields near my house look blue. They are also fun to smash between 2 pieces of paper in my cuttlebug.

Here is the scraps and papers I pulled from the bag of scraps on my craft table. Notice the embossing with gold metallic rub for my gold, the twine and the chicory flower.

One of the scraps started as the inside of an envelope that I ink spray smashed blue and green.

I used the following stamp sets:

ODB-Chicory

ODB-It is Well with my Soul

Sweet n Sassy Nature Silhouettes 2

Unity Here today Here tomorrow

STAMPlorations Anchored

and

STAMPlorations TRENDY BUTTERFLIES 

When I was stamping a ray of sunshine came through the window hitting my acrylic block just right making a rainbow. This made me really happy. It is the little things.

I added glitter and white acrylic paint to the flowers. Of course don't forget that I used cheesecloth. and brads.

Beautiful Butterfly- Love today

I made another scrap card today for 3  different challenges. 

First challenge is Splitcoast Stampers Ways to Use it Challenge -WT681-butterflies

 for Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2 (133)

and Word Art Wednesday 328-329

I used 2 of my favorite butterfly stamps on my card. 

Unity- HERE TODAY HERE TOMORROW

and STAMPlorations TRENDY BUTTERFLIES

I pulled all these papers out of my scraps bags to start.

 I narrowed it down to these papers.

One of the fun scrap papers that I used was this piece. It was part of an envelope. I stenciled butterflies and dyed it with blues and greens. 

Here is how it looked after I embossed it with a script folder.

 I stamped the sentiment and stamped the silhouette butterfly from Trendy butterflies to the golden panel. The Unity butterfly I cut out and added black cardstock for the antennas. A long time ago I stopped trying to cut out antennas and cut a super slender piece of cardstock and folded it to make them. So much easier this way.

 I used a brad to hold the burlap on. This is how it looked on the back. I felt it should be covered up.

 So I took another scrap and a black pen and stenciled butterflies onto it. That is what I cut and glued down to cover the back of the card.

For the inside of my easel card, I used another scrap and stamped the silhouette butterfly again.

Hope Lives Grungy Graffiti card

After suffering from a terrible migraine all day, I wasn't sure if I would play with paper today or not. 

When I first saw the sketch for this weeks Sketch Challenge for SCS. SC690

I decided to pass because with my head hurting, I wanted an easier sketch. However, my friend Pam challenged me to do the sketch that stretched me out of my comfort zone.

There was still time to make a card about Spring and Faith for the STAMPlorations March challenge

. 

I used STAMPlorations ART MARKS

and

STAMPlorations ANCHORED Dees Artsy Impressions

to make my non-traditional Resurrection Day card.

I was going for a graffiti look. I made a stylized cross with the linked circle elements criss crossing eachother. I stamped the word HOPE on the tilted panel. I took an alphabet set to stamp LIVES on the grungy graffiti background. The small panel was a piece of cardboard that I painted green and blue. The three elements on that panel are 3 small puzzle pieces  I also added a piece of cheesecloth and made a piano keyboard. Like the cards I made yesterday, my "Use only Scraps" challenge was continued on this card. 

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Word Art Wednesday 328-329 anything goes

 Make My Monday 67- Easter

Second sympathy card from scraps

I made a second sympathy card today using scraps from other projects.

Scraps and Sympathy

Sadly I needed to make a sympathy card for a good friend whose brother died unexpectedly this week. I challenged myself with this card. My challenge was to make a card using only white cardstock and scraps. I know it is hard for some people to understand, but I am a bit of a paper hoarder. When making cards, I keep all except the very tiny pieces of left over paper to use on other projects. I keep all the scraps in ziplock bags, envelopes, boxes, drawers.... Today I pulled one of the ziplock bags to choose the papers for my card. I should also add that sometimes, I will stamp, color, maybe even fussy cut an image and when making my card, that it just doesn't work. I don't like throwing them away so they get tossed into a scrap bag too. I had stamped this butterfly on dp and painted white dots on wings. The dandelion panel was also stamped and painted for another project and it got rejected for what ever it was that I was making (I just don't remember what that project was) The painted tag was also in that scrap bag. 

Today the colors and textures just spoke to me. 

OH Baby

My friend Deb and her friend Celeste have invited me to join them this month for their blog collaboration. The theme this month is to make a baby card in honor of Celeste's new grandbaby. 

I had a lot of fun making this card I paper pieced the baby stroller and fussy cut it out as well as the little safety pin.

My card was inspired by the Viva la Verve Sketches for March 2018

 I had enough of the plaid paper to make a gift tag that could go along with the card.

Isn't this little zebra so cute?

check out Celeste's card and Deb;s card.

I used this month's Viva la  Verve sketch.