A new post - finally!

Sorry it has taken so long for a new post, but I'm sure you all understand life gets crazy and . . . well, it just didn't happen. :) Anyway, I hope you all had a good weekend. It actually is a bit warmer here today, but I hear the cold is coming back with possibly snow for Wednesday! Yikes!

I have 2 projects to share today. The first is a sympathy card I needed to make this weekend for our assistant pastor and his family. His mother died last week and the funeral was Saturday - our prayers are definitely with them especially now! Thankfully, I haven't had to make too many sympathy cards, so this was a little hard to conceive. The flowers at the funeral home had beautiful roses and blue hydrangeas in them and I thought of this old, retired set Painted Posies. I also used Canvas and Warmest Regards (a hostess set this year). The colors didn't come out great in the photo, but they are Almost Amethyst, Certainly Celery and Confetti White and also Sahara Sand and Basic Black inks). When I stamped the flowers, I used the "rock & roll" technique. I'll try to take some pictures demonstrating this technique and post them later today. It's very hard to see on this card. I also used a faux tearing technique with the Canvas stamp (more on that in a later post too!).

The second card is another beautiful bella card using my new stamps from Stamping Bella. I am having so much fun playing with these stamps! They are fun to pair with my new Basic Grey papers too. This card used Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White cardstock. The designer paper (both the flowered and turquoise colored) is from BG's Gypsy collection. The background is stamped used a set called Double-Line Doodles (given to us at a Regional Conference), using Pumpkin Pie and Real Red inks. I colored Cakeabella with my watercolor crayons so that I could blend the colors to get the right turquoise for her pants - it's a little greener than SU's turquoise. The sentiment is also from Stamping Bella and the silver brads are from SU's Vintage brads (funny these are the ones I seem to have the most of and now I've found a good use for them - they are just right for these more updated looks!). Oh, and of course, I added a bit of sparkle (by way of dazzling diamonds) to the cake). The oval under Cakeabella's was done by punching out an oval with my SU oval punch and using the negative space to sponge the oval on my cardstock. Tis great idea came from pinkstampergirl on SCS. Neat, huh?? Punches have all kinds of uses you'd never think of! The card layout was also case'd from Little Pink Flowers. She has so many great bella cards in her gallery!

Ok, so enough for now. As said, I will try to post those techniques later today. Right now it's off to start the laundry! Yippy! Have a great day!