Easter Joy :)

Easter is the primary celebration if it can be called that, of the Christian calendar – far more significant than Christmas could ever be, yet I find I neither manage to produce nor send anywhere near the same volume of cards for this occasion as the latter sadly.  But without everything Jesus accomplished that first Easter, mankind would have NO redemption or salvation, or escape from God’s sure & certain judgement in the age to come.  Sin is so obviously inherent within every single person from birth we cannot escape its grasp.  God is perfect & just & thus cannot abide sin, demanding a payment be made for it, and a blood sacrifice is the only thing that makes us remotely stop in our tracks to appreciate the enormity of the crime we commit against God in our sinful nature.  Jesus came as our perfect sinless spotless lamb to be provided as God’s own sacrifice (just as He provided for Abraham), and thus only through Jesus can we ever be reconciled to God.  And thus we commemorate His awesome sacrifice & work on the Cross for this purpose, every Easter. 

If you’re interested in knowing more about what the point & purpose of that sacrifice was, then head over to my other blog Ever Looking Upwards and read more there.

This card is one of a few I did manage to create this week for Easter.  It’s a very simple basic card without too many frills although I’ve gotten utterly obsessed with diecuts & ribbon of late, so am churning out lots of similar designs to this for other occasions.

The background is a lovely grey baroque or damask style purchased locally in a mixed pack – a whole wonderful 24 sheets all different – soooo hard to choose and use anything as I just love looking at them all!! 

I used grey ribbon in a cross pattern and then matted the paper onto a gold mirri paper panel.   Then I diecut the quote and matted it onto gold mirri paper too.  Finally added the grey bow and some silver pearl adhesive gems.

As I was pushed for time I just used an ordinary insert with a nice verse as opposed to matching the inside to the outside as I’ve done with some other cards.

I’m entering this into 2 challenges:

Word Art Wednesday Challenge 128

Crafty Girls Challenge 16

Easter Blessings to you all!!

 

WordArt Wednesday Challenge #124

Another Word Art Wednesday challenge and thankfully again Anything Goes which as always, works wonderfully for me.   This week I’ve made a nice birthday card for an elderly relative who loves pink & lace so easy to provide for :).

The background paper is from a Paper Cellar tartan pack sadly now seemingly no longer available, and it was matted onto gold holographic card.  I punched a complementary pink border to go on top of the lace, which is a really deep lace.

Another wonderful Thomas Kinkade design - Garden of Promise - was tunnel cut and also matted onto the holographic card before putting over the lace border.  Then the best part as always comes with the Wild Orchid Craft roses which just set it off perfectly.

Then the “stop” is a foiled diecut one (possibly Hunkydory) which I’ve again put a couple of roses either side to just set it off.

 

And as always, the base & tag are made to match.

I finished it all off with a matching box as well and boxed the card with pink tissue paper which I know she’ll really love.

Blessings

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psa 139:14 

Word Art Wednesday - card #2

This card is one I created for a friend who’s having a bit of a tough time spiritually just now.  She loves green & cream so I used those colours to good effect with the card.    This verse is just typed & printed out to fit into a Spellbinders scallop oval in cream which is then matted onto a green oval which has actually been cut out of a 2^nd Spellbinders floral oval (I just cut off the outside section, to ensure it would fit snugly inside the final one).  The final floral oval has then been diecut from greaseproof paper just to be different.  I’d been using this as a shim sometimes & then thought they looked quite nice so started using them rather than discarding (well, you know how we all just LOVE hoarding stuff!!)

Underneath that is a layer of 25 mm cream ribbon & a green punched strip (MS scallop punch I think).  The flowers are all Wild Orchid Crafts, & the decoupage is from my stash.

I’ve done the base similarly to the top, and again just diecut the printed greeting.  All finished off with some adhesive cream pearls and her name in peel-off gold foil letters.

WordArt Wednesday Challenge

This is my first ever entry into the WordArtWednesday challenge, & thankfully this one is “Anything Goes” so easy for me to have something to make for it.   I’ve chosen to provide these 2 cards as while the challenge doesn’t demand WordArt, it’s nice to be able to show off my chosen scriptures.

The first features WordArt by Karen Murray and I’ve used it on a wedding card as my brother & his partner are getting married later in the year.   I’ve  created the background sheet myself, using vector branch shapes found online, but think I need rather a lot more practice to make something that looks a bit more professional sadly.  But it did what I wanted.  It was then triple matted onto black/cream.

I diecut and embossed the WordArt using Spellbinders labels 4 and matted it onto some Shapeabilities Ironwork Accents cut from the label.   They’re not the shape I really wanted, but adequate to do the job.

Finished off with a cream double bow. 

Blessings!

First card of 2014 :)

First “general” card of 2014 and a different one for me, as I’ve made it primarily from “scraps” that I’ve hoarded in my craft room for at least 6 months (some longer).   I’m not a big fan of pink as a colour for anything, and thus rarely make cards using it unless asked to, or for a romantic occasion (rare!) so I tend to have rather a lot of pink cardstock lying around.  It usually comes in packs of other colours which I use more frequently, so I get left with all this pink card I’ve no real use for, but am reluctant to throw out or give away.

So that’s where today’s card comes in.  I came across the perfect blog for me (& probably ever other crafter out there).   Re-Creations is a wonderful Christian Crafters site, & home of the Craft Hoarders Anonymous team who have set their first challenge of the year to share a project that typifies your style.  Well, my style is increasingly FLORAL easel cards above all other types, although as many of you know, last year my health was so abysmal, I was fortunate to make ANY cards let alone these ones which invariably take me an hour or so longer.

Anyway this card is made using up not only my pink card, but also a background paper I’ve had lying around for ages which I wasn’t that struck on, but which goes perfectly in this style of card, as being split into 3 it breaks up the design somewhat so it’s not quite so obvious.

The diecuts again had been lying around for some time, as I used the pink card to try out the floral die when I first got it & then ended up keeping the cut as I just hate throwing anything out even when I feel I’ll probably never use it!!  Even the roses aren’t ones I use regularly – possibly only got one other card on the blog with pink roses in any sense on it.  And the lace – well this was given to me 2 years ago & stuck away in a drawer never to see the light of day as I really didn’t like it at all.  But I figured this was as good a chance to use it as any.

The only thing that’s “new” is the concept that I’ve developed for these cards – I call them “Pass it on” cards because they come with additional tags so that you can pass the card & thus the scripture message, on to a friend should you wish to do so.  I’d so many friends tell me they loved my cards but after a while felt bad that they just couldn’t find space to keep them (they were getting so many from me LOL!), so I figured this might help them out, and sure enough they’re overjoyed to have the means of knowing the card will give someone else joy too.

So hopefully you’ve enjoyed the card – see you with whatever challenge I work on next time round :).

If you want to join in the fun head over to Craft Hoarders Anonymous/Re-Creation blog and SHOW YOUR STYLE (Mine's floral easels!) :). 

I'm also entering this into Word Art Wednesday as it's another site that provides me with a great opportunity to share the Word knowing it'll be well accepted (some blog owners sadly do seem to have an issue with scripture cards I feel).

Enjoy!

  

"Choose my instruction rather than silver, and knowledge over pure gold.
For wisdom is far more valuable than rubies. Nothing you desire can be compared with it.” Proverbs chapter 8 verses 10 & 11: