Celebrate New Life with Verve

We have a ministry in our church called Baby Grace. It's designed to give prayer support and funnel donated items to young, new parents. We also try to send cards to them for different occassions. This is one I'm adding to my stash. I chose the theme from Kaboodle Doodles Challenge #114 - Celebrate New Life.  I just loved the digital image of the rabbit holding baby ducks.  I used the Viva La Verve Sketch for the 2nd week of April 2012.

I combined the  floral paper with flowers that are glittered along the edges to go with Sugar Creek Hollow's Challenge #6 - Floral.  It's definitely a shabby chic card.  I also chose the elements to go with Our Creative Corner's challenge "In Your Easter Bonnet" to include things you would have on your bonnet. I included the flowers, leaves, pearls, buttons, and organdy ribbon.

I made my tag a little differently than I would usually do. I left it long horizontally and clipped the top two corners. The twine that's tied to the button is also wrapped through the tag. I inked the edges of all of the papers with Cocoa ink.

6.5" x 5" Baby Card Recipe:

Paper - Graphic45 "Once Upon a Springtime ;" Close To My Heart Brown Bag, Colonial White, Kraft cardstock

Image - from Free Vintage Digital Stamps

Stamp - Verve "Hope Blooms"

Ink - CTMH Black, Cocoa

Other - Flowers & leaves -Petaloo Flora Doodles; CTMH button from Red Collection, Organdy; twine from Papertrey Ink

Shabby Paris Card

The Shabby Tea Room Challenge #103 uses this inspiration photo and the colors navy, neutrals, and a distressed item. I also used this photo for the Sugar Creek Hollow challenge: Inspired by a Photo (of our own choosing.

I used the following photo elements to make my card: thread (symbolized by fashion in my card), Paris (Tour d'Eiffel), canceled mail symbol, navy gingham, peeling white paint, and shutters.

My distressed item is the paper which I scissor distressed on the edges then inked with a sponge. The middle paper has a man and woman dressed to go out on the town so I chose the word "together" so that I can give this to my oldest daughter and son-in-law on an anniversary because they had a wonderful whirlwind trip to Paris when she spoke at a conference. (That word is stamped on a white piece of chipboard that had a clear embossed design of dots on the edge. I rubbed an inked sponge over it revealing the design.) Yet, they're both very midwestern, down-to-earth so the gingham and the burlap texture of the smaller print is appropriate. The corrugated star was painted white like the chair and its horizontal lines represent the lines of the shutters. This was a fun card to assemble so I really appreciate the photo inspiration for a challenge. Thank you ladies.

5" x 6.5" card recipe:
Paper - Graphic45 "Fashionista"
Stamp - CTMH Bliss
Ink - CTMH Cocoa, Desert Sand
Other - Paper Studio Stick-a-biliies; K&Co Life's Journey (button); Papertrey Ink (twine); KaiserCraft Lace; Close to my Heart "Milepost Shapes"(star), Opaque Pearl Adhesive Gem; gingham fabric; Free Vintage Digital Stamps (French burlap)

Shabby Bears for Boys

With five grandsons, I think about making more masculine cards, but usually make them for my female friends instead. Here's one I made using the sketch challenge this week from Sugar Creek Hollow. In addition to the sketch, they want you to use a "cute" stamp and make it vintage/shabby chic. I don't have many "cute" stamps, but I knew I had three bears (from a very old CTMH stamp) that might work. Here's the sketch:

I used a paper pack called "Lucky" from Close to my Heart to have both the vintage and masculine look. I used lots of scissor distressing and some sponging in two colors to distress the oval and the cut-out bear image. I used watercolor pencils (but no waterbrush) on the cross-hatched portions of the bear image for more shading. Vintage cards often have pearls so on this masculine version I used CTMH mocha adhesive gems in the darkest brown color.

I'm also posting this card on Creative Card Crew's Challenge #4 for a masculine card and on Here Come the Boys Challenge #21 - a masculine card with "Vintage Feel." I'm also combining these challenges with the DYSU Challenge #60 - Distressing - since I used two kinds of edge distressing.

6" x 6" card recipe:
Paper - Close To My Heart "Lucky"
Stamps - CTMH retired
Ink - Ranger "Vintage Photo" (image); CTMH - Outdoor Denim (sentiment, sponging), Cocoa (sponging)
Other - Spellbinders die (oval); Martha Stewart border punch; CTMH mocha adhesive gems, jute; pop-dots