A little Word Play to start my summer

Hello! I am so very happy to announce that my summer vacation has officially begun!  We had our final day lunch meeting today and now I am free for a few months!  We still have softball sectionals going on, but other than that my days are filled with laundry, weeding, and other very neglected chores!

Of course, this also gives me a little play time as well so I hope to be posting and visiting more often!  Today's card was made last week, but I'm just now getting around to posting it.  This is a graduation card for a special young lady.  Not only is she family (my cousin's daughter), but she was also one of my preschool students a few years ago (must be super smart to graduate so early! wink!).  I made her card in her school colors and thought this sentiment from Word Play fit perfectly.

                                 

It was so much fun to pull out my supplies and make individual cards again since I haven't done this for a while!  I'm still a little behind on my birthday card making so that will probably be next on my 'to do' list.  Well, at least the one that I actually want to work on completing- the housework one? not so much...

I have a few more graduation cards to share with you but will save them for another day!  Until then, I hope you manage to find some time this week to make something fun!

Card Recipe: Paper-night of navy, whisper white, cherry cobbler, Ink-night of navy, cherry cobbler, Accessories-perfect polka dots ef, cherry cobbler seam binding

Anything But a Card- Inspired by a Master

Hello! I am so glad you stopped by my blog today! This month, Anything But a Card Challenges has a fantastic challenge (well, every month is fantastic, but I REALLY like this one).  We are encouraging you to choose someone you admire artistically and create something based on that inspiration.  This could be one of the famous masters or someone amazing that may not be world renown. 

I knew immediately who my inspiration would be.  When I was in college, I took a few art history classes and absolutely fell in love with Monet.  I was even fortunate enough to see the traveling Monet exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago when I was fresh out of college.  There is just something so amazing about the blurred lines and gorgeous blends of color in all of his creations.  The most difficult part of this challenge was deciding which work to use as my inspiration piece.  I finally chose his Iris paintings, mainly because the irises are currently blooming in our yard!

Here is one of the Master's Iris paintings...

This is actually an oil painting and my creation is more of a watercolor, but I think the inspiration still shows in my ATC.  I also did not have an actual iris stamp so I have a 'sorta kinda' purple iris thing in my garden.  I'm sure Monet wouldn't mind my creative twist at all!

I used soft sky, pool party, and marina mist inks with an aqua painter to make the background.  The flower was stamped in wild wasabi and elegant eggplant inks and then lightly brushed with the aqua painter.  It was a lot of fun to make my version of a Monet painting, and I really hope you will decide to join us and share your favorite!

Almost there...

It has been incredibly busy here, but freedom is just around the corner!  Between tennis, softball, choir, school, and home, spring is always a busy time of year.  Add to that some crafting projects for the softball team, and thank yous for my niece's wedding, and it gets borderline crazy!  However, the thank yous are finished, the last of the softball projects are almost ready, and there are only five, count them, five glorious days of school left!  I really cannot wait for the first day of summer break!

As I mentioned above, my niece (actually my husband's niece, but we're all family here!) was recently married.  I helped a little with her shower decorations and offered to make the thank yous for her wedding.  It was a bit of an assembly line production since she wanted 100 of them, but I managed to get them all completed and boxed on time to give them to her at the wedding.  I'm not going to share a photo of the thank you just yet, as a courtesy to the bride and groom, but I do have the wedding card I made for their special day.

This was incredibly easy and I almost feel guilty claiming I made it!  I used a piece of wisteria wonder cardstock and embossed it with a heart folder, then I simply added a premade wedding embellishment that was in my stash.  Easy peasy!!

Well, it's another crazy day for me so I gotta get going! Thanks so much for stopping by today!