Butterfly Doily

This designer paper is different in that it seems to change color depending on what colors it's around. When I saw it in the pad, it looked like a grayish hue. My husband saw it and thought it had some green in it. But I liked the look of it paired with this chocolate brown paper, which makes the print sort of a mocha color. I thought the little doily resembled the flowers, so that's how the card came together. The butterfly just happened to be something small enough to fit on the doily. I wish you could see the shimmer on the butterfly's wings though -- that's my favorite part of the card.

Have a great weekend!

Supplies:

Stamps - sentiment by Hero Arts "Everyday Sayings"; Butterfly from Penny Black "Enamor" clear set

Paper - from Love Nicole "Delicate Floret" 6x6 pad

Ink - Versamark for sentiment; Ranger Adirondack "Espresso"

Dies - unbranded doily

Accessories - White embossing powder

Abstract Hello

I'm having fun playing with my new "Floral Squares" dies from Pinkfresh Studio. One thing I like is that you can use the negative (cut out) portion of the die as well as the regular framed flower die, so with each cut, you have two die cuts you can create with. Here, I've used the negative portion, so the flower has been punched out of the purple paper.

The designer paper is from the "Aquarelle" pad by Love Nicole. Yes, I know I've used these papers a lot -- just a testament to how much I like them! This print is kind of wild, so I used a strip of vellum underneath the "hello" die (Hero Arts) so that it stands out a bit more.

It's the weekend! Hope you all have a great one!

More Color!

My friend Jeannie runs "Dragonfly Journeys," a challenge blog, and her challenge this week is called "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It sent me looking for rainbow paper so that I could play along.  I found a perfect sheet in an American Crafts 6x6 pad called "#Summer" that allowed me to make two cards. This first one uses a strip of the striped paper, along with a sticker I found in my stash, which I popped up on dimensionals.

My second card uses the same paper:

This time, I added a tag with a die cut "hello" (Hero Arts), and stamped a sentiment below from Hero Arts' "Everyday Sayings" clear set. This is perhaps my most used set in my card ministry, because it contains nearly every saying I need, including "thinking of you" in 3 different fonts. Inside this card, I added a verse from Hampton Art's "Hope & Faith" set:

I AM truly glad, because today is the first day of June, and summer break is just around the corner. "Wonderful Joy" indeed! Wishing you joy as well!

Hello, and Welcome!

(Click for a larger photo)

Hello! It has been YEARS since I've had a blog, perhaps because I eventually ran out of things to say. Well, that's not really true, but things certainly changed in my life when I decided to put my stamp business, Hambo Stamps, on the back burner and focus more on my family. My stamp biz was taking over the house, right at a time when my kids were entering their teenage years, and needing more space. So while I didn't close my business completely, I DID quit promoting it, and spent my energy instead on my kids, a partial house renovation, and eventually -- as I began to itch to stamp again after taking so much time off -- the creation of a card ministry for my church.

I've been leading out in this card ministry for a few years now, and as my profile on the right says, I learned some things in the process. My hope is that the things I have learned will benefit others who might be doing a card ministry themselves, or wanting to start one. No sense re-inventing the wheel, right? Let my experience help you sidestep the potholes that I fell in, and one-up my successes.

I will share some cards with you along the way so you'll have something to look at instead of/in addition to reading my ramblings. You'll note that my card style is CAS (clean and simple) for the most part, which actually works quite well for card ministry, because you'll want those cards to fit in an envelope and be sent at regular postage rates!

Today's card has layers though, and was made with a GORGEOUS designer paper that was included in the spring edition (Apr/May/Jun 2018) Stampers' Sampler magazine. It is called "Budding Thoughts" by Eirene Nguyen. This was the background paper for my card. I had a piece of scrap paper with what looks to me like dogwood blooms, which I coordinated with the background. The papers were so pretty, I didn't want to cover them up, so I used a vellum tag with a Hero Arts "Hello" die and a rose gold brad. The brad will cause a small bump in the envelope, but it shouldn't cause any mailing problems.

I hope you'll check back in from time to time, and be sure to let me know if you have any specific questions about card ministries that I might be able to answer by email or in a later post. I'm not claiming to be an EXPERT, but hopefully the experience that I DO have will help!