Life is Tough Encouragement Cards

Life us full of ups and downs, some small and some catastrophically huge.  Here's a set of encouragement cards I made using Prickly Pear papers. When I was almost four years my family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. While driving there, my grandmother showed me a small cactus and told me to watch out, it had stickers that would hurt. Of course, I got stuck in less than five minutes. Just a little problem, but I thought the cactus on these papers could represent any sort of prickly problems. Since the cacti images are more whimsical than realistic, I thought the marker style sentiment fit perfectly. It's from the retired CTMH Sunshine on a Cloudy Day stamp set.

I made several of this card design and couldn't decide which encouragement verse to put inside, so I used this week's free word art scripture from Word Art Wednesday which was perfect for my intent and three different ones from the retired CTMH set, Look to the Light, some with the cactus from Prickly Pear - Cardmaking stamp set..

I'm sharing this project with the following challenges:

Dragonfly Dreams - Patterned Paper
Eclectic Ellapu September Challenge - Flora or Fauna/Nature
QKR Stampede Challenge - Wild West or anything goes
Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge #171 - Anything goes with ribbon
Word Art Wednesday #298-299 - anything goes

July Stamp of the Month Storybook Alphabet Card

I wasn't sure how I'd use the July Stamp of the Month until I saw the Washi Wonder stamp set that made a comeback for this month. I'm still making cards for the sorority sister being treated for cancer. I thought stamping "HUGS" on the card might give her a lift for the day she gets this one. I used the Color Throwdown  #449 palette of orange, green and brown because the alphabet is embellished with leafy foliage designs.

This month Close To My Heart is having a Stampaganza, buy two stamp sets, get one free! They are also re-introducing several stamp sets from the past, like Washi Wonder, You can see these here. I'll also be using several of these on my cards this month. 

If you'd like more ideas on using the Storybook Alphabet, here's a link to the  Stamp of the Month Blog Hop that my fellow consultants are having tonight, starting with Cat Nowalk's fun creation.

I stamped my washi tape images using Cashmere, Willow, and Tangerine inks. I stamped each washi tape image twice, above and below a center line to make them seem longer.  I stamped the word on Kraft cardstock to match the Kraft card base using New England Ivy ink, then colored it with colored pencils. The white minimized the outline of the letters so I retraced with a fine point journaling pen, adding a little shading on one side of the letters. It's mounted on a strip of  white glitter paper. The background paper panel is from Prickly Pear paper pack.

Thanks for visiting!