joy

While making Thanksgiving cards, thoughts about the upcoming holidays kept popping up. One thing led to another and an idea for an Advent card came to mind beginning from a glassine bag by Melissa Phillips that had stayed with me.

The card is going to my two young great-nieces who love the colors purple and pink, which works out perfectly for an Advent card. I planned on sending it to them the third week of Advent so that I could use the word “joy” on it. The die cut is glittered using Heather’s MIM#141, applying glitter via heat embossing. After several attempts at different variations, I ended up mixing fine glitter into clear embossing powder and heating that. It required extra heat to melt, so the paper did get scorched. I’m sure that Ayla and Zoe won’t notice.

I don’t like to push my beliefs on others, but, since this is an Advent card, it really needed a verse or prayer that had something to do with Advent. (My niece and her family are the same religion as I, so I wasn’t concerned with insulting them in any way.) The prayer that I had on hand was too advanced for my great-nieces, so the Internet came to the rescue. I found a song, sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, that hit just the note I wanted.

So often cards do not turn out the way I imagine, but this surpassed my imagination. It shares a message of faith while being fun and girly. Even better, when I showed the card to my daughter, she started crying. No, I am not a horrible mother. It was the reason for her tears that touched me. Brianna immediately thought of my mom when looking at the card and shared, “Grandmère would have loved this card. It would have brought a smile to her face.” And that is one of the reasons why I make cards.

nancy

ever so grateful

Melissa Phillips is hosting this week’s Make It Monday and she created the most enchanting card with its focus being a dimensional leaf wreath. I had hoped to play along and use some of the vivid colors that are so prevalent this time of year. Well, I’m playing along, but the colors I used are of the softer, muted side of autumn.

I also managed to incorporate into this card a challenge from Studio Calico to use three stamping techniques with one stamp set. The set that I used is Papertrey Ink’s Autumn Acorns. The outside of the card used the stamps with embossing and paper piecing.

Tucked on the inside corner, the leaf stamp was inked using the rock-n-roll technique.

Today’s religious education class presented me with a test of my patience and, unfortunately, I didn’t pass. This card is going to our DRE to tell her how much I appreciate her help with the situation. (Yes, I am intentionally being very vague here.) I should be sending a card to Linda each week to let her know what she means to me. This is a start.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope your week is off to a great start.

nancy