Never Be Afraid

It took me awhile to get going on this card.  Today was very stressful and I came home and collapsed in my chair.  I had some ideas of cards I wanted to make but just couldn’t seem to get going.  After a quick nap and some supper, provided by some of the wonderful parents from school, I finally felt like I needed to go create something beautiful and inspiring for myself.  I hope it is for you, too.

The card base is a 5” x 7” white card and stamped the beautiful butterflies in pink around the edges.  This stamp is part of the Faith Set from Our Daily Bread Designs.  I took some pink and lime green plaid paper and used a Martha Stewart butterfly border/corner punch set around the edges.  Then I ran it through a Cuttlebug folder with swirls and butterflies and sponged the edges and embossing with dark pink ink.  I thought more of the embossing would show but I guess I made everything else larger than I meant to so I covered more of this paper.  I did add some tiny pearls to the ends of the embossed swirls.  I placed this decorative paper at the top center of the card. 

The next section was my “lattice”.  I started out with a layer of dark pink decorative floral designer paper and add some lovely lime green designer paper on top of it.  Then I cut out three small white decorative borders and two dark green vines, using a Cuttlebug die, and layered these on top of the green strip.  It really came out looking like a lattice with vines growing up it.

The final layer is the sentiment which comes from the As You Graduate stamp set, also from Our Daily Bread Designs.  I stamped the verse in dark pink on a piece of vellum.  Then I stamped the scenic background, from the same stamp set, in lime green on a piece of white cardstock.  I used a Spellbinder label die to cut out the center and sponged a little dark pink around the inside edge.  I layered this on top of the verse and took the middle section I had cut out and layered this behind the vellum verse.  This gave the continuation of the image but just a little lighter.  I took a little larger Spellbinder die and cut out another window from a rectangle of the dark pink decorative floral paper.  I popped this up with foam tape over the first section with the sentiment, and then adhered this to the middle right side of the card.

For embellishments I added a few pink silk flowers and two pink paper roses to my “lattice” and finished off with 3 lovely green pearls on the bottom right side of the card.  Even though I am tired because it is now quite late and I need to get to bed, my soul is refreshed from the joy of creating this card.  Now for some sleep and followed by a day of strawberry picking with my kindergarten class.  It is supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow and the children will have so much fun.  We will all come back with muddy shoes and red juice stains on our lips and chins from the strawberries we weren’t supposed to eat.

This card is entered in the following challenges:

Joan’s Gardens Weekly Challenge #16 – Lime Green and Pink with a lattice, leaves to create a vine on the lattice, and Butterflies
Totally Gorjuss Challenge #78 - 1 of one thing (sentiment), 2 of another (mini roses) and 3 of something else (designer papers or green pearls
Our Daily Bread Designs Shining the Light ODBDSLC58 – Sketch

Stamp Challenges  - Things with Wings

Catch The Bug Blog Challenge – Make a Flower/Bright Color Project

CES Challenge #34 – Inspiration Picture

Crafts and Me Challenges #32 – Swirls

Craft Your Passion Challenges #56 – Anything Goes

The Crafty Pad Challenge 119 – Pearls and Swirls

Flourishes Bring Back the Beautiful – Flowers

Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge – Springtime

Paper Cutz Challenge #89 – Anything Goes
Flutter By Wednesdays #153 - Open