Soothing Sympathy

Hello folks and happy Friday! I hope the sun is shining and air is light in your neck of the woods! It was back to school week for us here and man, was I NOT ready for a schedule! After sleeping through her alarm, it appeared my daughter wasn't either! ;-)

Moving on, I have a Power Poppy card to share on this Bloom Brigade Parade Friday and it's one that already has a stamp on it ready to be put in the mail. I really hate having to make sympathy cards but do love that I can put a piecce of myself in each one I make so that the recipient knows it was truly sent from the heart. On to my creation... 

This card is being sent to one of the ladies I met while watching our sons play football together. Her husband lost his fight to cancer after several years in the battle. Even on his worst days, he would be in the stands. Even in the midst of her pain, she always had a smile on her face and an unshakable faith. It was and is so inspiring. So, even though we weren't terribly close, I really wanted to share just how much her love for him and her faith touched my heart. 

I picked up Power Poppy's set Soothing Sympathy and colored up the peony in the set using soft peach tones. I honestly don't remember which ones but if I had a guess I would say I used R21, R01, RV00 for the flower and G20, G21 and G24 for the leaves. I kept the background crisp and simple and didn't even add any shading around the image. I put it together using a clean layout and added a bit of bling thanks to a row of rhinestones. 

Here's a close up for you....

And here's a peek inside. You might not be able to see but I did stamp the rosemary sprig from the stamp set on the inside using a super soft green ink. 

And that, my friends, is it! Some of my fellow Bloomies have some fun things to share for this little Friday show and tell! So, click on over and see these fine ladies....

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber >> you are here!
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

Thanks for stopping by and spending a bit of your morning with me! I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead and I'll see you back here real soon!

~Julie

A Challenge.... and how I did it!

It's Friday! TGIF! Which means.... drum roll please... time for another Stamp Simply Challenge courtesy of the lovely and talented Sharon Johnson (applause welcome)!

This week her challenge is to paper pierce. In her words, "anyway, anyhow, anywhere, anything goes -- from simple piercing around a scallop edge, or a simple straight line or corner, to something ornate with a fancy Ornare type template -- as long as we are poking holes in our paper -- LOL!!!" Ok, so that's easy enough right? What are you waiting for, get piercing!!!

To check out the details for her challenge... click HERE That's where you'll also find her fabulous creation!! LOVE the colors she used!

Dee Jackson also came up with a FABULOUS idea for paper piercing. When I saw her card, I actually thumped my head and said, "Now why didn't I think of that!" Check it out HERE!

I actually used a Lasting Impressions brass template for my paper piercing. I have a ton of old brass stencils that I bought probably 4 or 5 years ago that hardly ever see the light of day! Well, I am dragging them out now because I realized I can use them with my Wizard OR use them like I did here, for paper piercing templates!

I also did something else! I used this template to create a mask so that I could sponge ink in the center of my piercing. So, I ran the template through my Wizard, folded it in half and then cut along the inside line leaving about 1/2 inch.


What I have now... is a mask! I tacked it down with some post-it notes and then sponged in some Antique Paper Distress Ink in the center.


Lift off the mask and PRESTO.... this is what you've got!


From there, I inked up my Hero Arts flower with two shades of red marker and two shades of green marker to give it some dimension. I huffed and stamped! I did leave the mask over my main piece of paper when I stamped because I didn't want the stem of my flower to go below the inked up part of my paper pierced piece. I matted it onto a piece of Stardream Gold paper, wrapped it with some gold embroidery floss, and matted it on a 4 by 5-1/4" piece of red that had been accented with a kind of Harlequin stamp using Versamark ink. I matted the red piece on a piece of brown that had been edged with gold leaf pen. And then matted this whole thing onto a textured dark red card stock base. The sentiment is from Silhouette Blooms from Cornish Heritage Farms. I love this set! The words and flowers are so elegant! Before I attached a hot fix nail head onto my sentiment tag, I did use the ticket corner punch from Stampin' Up on all four corners. I attached my tag not with the thread but just by cheating with some foam tape!

Hope you find time to take part in the challenge! I'd love to see what you cook up!

Have a fab weekend!