Penelope Easter Card

I love the colors of SPRING! They seem to wake me up after a drab season of winter colors. My yard is wrapped in pastel blooming bulbs and trees. Today two plum trees are in bloom, one white and one purple. Here's another Easter card reflecting these spring colors and the resurrection message: The Lord reigns; let the earth REJOICE! That's exactly what my trees and bulbs are doing on this sunny day!

I usually use my Cricut Explore to cut dies, but our computer connection has been spotty for a couple of weeks so I used four different punches instead. I'm also keeping this short while I have a connection! The Penelope papers, the Rejoice stamp set, and the Gray enamel gems are all CTMH.


I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Crafter's Café #145 - Easter
Crafty Enjoyments Challenge #5 - Easter
Creative Moments #89 - anything goes/optioal - Spring
Double D Challenges - Easter
Kreativeinkauf #37 - Easter
Paper Creators #45  Spring Colors
Sisterhood of Crafters- dies/punches
Southern Ridge Trading Company March challenge - Easter
Word Art Wednesday #222-223 - anything uplifting
Words 2 Craft By March challenge - Easter/Rebirth


Thank you for visiting! May you enjoy the beauties of this season and rejoice!

Daffodil Tag Easter Card

My daffodils began blooming last week along with my apricot trees and a star magnolia. They inspired me to start making Easter cards with daffodils! And while the flowers are "resurrecting" I thought the ODBD stamp of John 11:25 would be an appropriate Easter verse emphasizing Christ's resurrection from the dead and the same hope of His believers.

I used the CTMH Penelope workshop kit to make this card along with the CTMH Chevron embossing folder. The tag and verse stamps are from ODBD, but the butterfly is a retired one from the Trellis stamp set. I colored the images with Copic and ShinHan alcohol ink markers and embellished simply with CTMH silver Playful Puffies and thick twines.


I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Aud Sentiments Challenge #150 - Easter or Spring
Come and Get It #109 - Easter/Spring
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #354 - Easter/Spring
Word Art Wednesday #221 - anything uplifting

March SOTM Blog Hop - Sunshine Birdies

Welcome to our March Stamp of the Month Blog Hop. If you just came from Dana Kessler's blog, you're on the right path.  If you need to see the entire list you an find it on Melinda's blog here.
We used the stamp set, Sunshine Birdies. This stamp is only available in the month of March. It's just perfect for spring!

This was such a fun stamp set to play with. I made all of my cards using the Penelope paper pack. My first card uses a Cricut frame with three windows since the stamp set has three different birds. I embossed the green background with the Vine embossing folder.

The last two cards also have Cricut cuts from Artbooking.  I used fussy cutting on the images of the first and made the second so that the detailed images didn’t need to be cut out.

On the first, the heart banner came from p.61 cut at 5.5 in.   I used the word “happy” from the stamp set by placing scotch tape over the other words while I inked, pulling it off before I stamped the word. Then I added the tiny word “birthday” from C1605, Happy  to be Friends. 

I discovered that the sun in the stamp set matched the number of rays as the Cricut sun on p. 53 when cut at 3 3/8 in. I stamped it on the Penelope yellow striped paper and colored and cut the center out to pop dot over the image I stamped on the die cut sun.

Thanks for visiting!

Now you're ready to go on to Gina's blog. 

SWAA March Blog Hop - Focus on Penelope and/or Boxes

Welcome to our Blog Hop!  I am featuring Close To My Heart's "Penelope" paper pack.   The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way all around. 

You may have just come here from Aggie Peters' blog.  If you get lost along the way, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants on Melinda’s Blog.

I love the way this paper pack has 10 different patterned papers plus two "Picture My Life" sheets with nine more patterned 4" x 3" or 4" x 6" cards ready to cut out for pocket or regular scrapbook pages or cards.  On one side these cards are oriented vertically and on the other side horizontally.



My cards were inspired by the month of March! Green is coming soon in this brown and gray world around many of us!  The card base was cut out using Cricut Artfully Sent. I loved the curved front! I also wanted to use the Operation Smile stamp set, "Animal Greetings," so I included a small trimmed circle of gold glitter paper to anchor the tiny alligator chosen because he's also green. He's standing on a bow tied from Fern Thick Twine.  I used gold shimmer trim to easily edge the bottom of the inside.

My second card was embellished with a bow and glittery hearts from the Pear Fundamental Assortment.

I added four of the hearts inside the card to highlight the cut-out shamrock. You can see the shine of the gold embossed design on the bow here:

I shared three cards earlier this month using the Penelope paper. You can read the details about how I made them here. Come back throughout this month to see the other Penelope projects I'll continue to share here.

Thank you for visiting!  Now you're ready to move on to  Sheila's blog to see what delightful project she's prepared for you.


I'm sharing my second "green shine" card with the following challenges:

Creative Knockouts #130 - Go Green
D.L.Art Thankful Thursday #175 - Frogs and/or use the color green

Card for a Speedy Recovery

Perhaps because I'm an aging baby boomer I seem to know more people all the time who have surgeries, hospital stays, injuries, or physical therapy. Because they're not really ill a get well card doesn't often seem appropriate. So today I made one "for a speedy recovery." That sounds better.

I was inspired by the Tuesday Throwdown Theme of "under the weather," the Color Dare at Color My Heart and the sketch at Atlantic Hearts.

  

The budding stems and the jar were cut using p. 2 of Cricut Artistry and the Cricut Explore.  I unlocked the images in edit and made the heighth and width different proportionally to fit what I envisioned. I love that editing feature! I was thinking of pussy willows so I colored the buds on the branches white using a chalk marker. I embossed the Peacock mat then lightly rubbed the Peacock ink pad over the raised design. The background paper with the light Crystal Blue stripe is from the new Penelope paper pack. The diamond patterned paper used to make the vase is, too, but the pattern is harder to see in my photo. The stamp used is from the set called Kiss It Better. I love the get well sentiments in that set!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Atlantic Hearts Sketch #143

Color My Heart Color Dare #177 - White Daisy, Whisper, Peacock, Crystal Blue 

Creative Knockouts #125 - Embossing

House of Cards January Challenge - Embossing

Moving Along with the Times #12 - Embossing

PDE Linky Party #107 - anything goes

Tuesday Throwdown #277 - Under the weather

Word Art Wednesday #218 - anything uplifting

6.5" x 5" Card Recipe (All CTMH):
Paper - Penelope, Whisper CS, Peacock CS
Ink - Peacock
Stamp - Kiss It Better B1508
Accessories - White Shimmer Trim, Whisper Thick Twine, Cricut Artistry, Quatrefoil Embossing folder, White Chalk Marker