April Wrap-Up

There were a couple projects here there in April that I didn't get to post.  The first being the birthday card that I made for my office co-worker.  

This "pebble-art" project was part of a birthday gift for a friend who shares a love of birds and paper arts. The pebbles are from our yard.  I coated them with some Mod Podge and dotted the eye on the pebble.  The legs and beaks are drawn on the watercolored background.  The branches and flowers are die cuts.  I was lucky to find this little shadowbox frame at IKEA.

One of the teachers I work with asked me to make some tags for bridal shower favors. 

They were attached to flower-shaped cookie pops which were displayed in a planter box.  

And this card was made a while ago and used in the Write_On challenge that I attempted this month. I say attempted because I didn't quite get through the month.  The weeks around Easter became so filled with other things that needed to be accomplished so I needed to put this on the back burner.  I still have my list of recipients and a stack of notecards so I will finish up eventually, just not in April.

How was your month?  We're definitely rushing to the finish line with the school year with less than 40 days to go.  Mother Nature is heating things up and Spring is quickly moving forward.  The days are enjoyably longer and the yard is beckoning for attention.  I just might have to do some weeding soon.  

Recycling a Calendar and Friendly Fill-Ins

This project dates back to 2015 and I know I've never shared it.  I did this series of notecards when I was having a lot of neck and arm pain the spring after my back surgery and I wasn't really in a good frame of mind at that time.  I had meant them to be a gift for a friend who had given us tickets to the flower show that year, even though we didn't get to go.  I don't know why I decided not to give them in the end, but I'm glad that I didn't destroy them. They were tucked away in a container with some other cards and since I'm gearing up to participate in the Write_On Challenge for National Handwriting Month in April to write 30 handwritten letters in 30 days, I am putting together a selection of notecards.  Some of them, as these, that are already in my stash and some that I am putting together with bits and pieces of past projects and making new notecards with them.  

These 12 cards were made with an old floral calendar.  I took several of the pages and cut them up to the size I wanted.  I looked through my stamps and pulled out a bunch that had solid floral images and stamped them onto the calendar pieces with VersaMark ink and then embossed with white embossing powder.  At this time I don't remember if it's an original idea or not, but as I look at them now, I do like how they came out.  

I'll be showing off some of the other scrappy cards in the next week or so.  If  you'd like to participate in this challenge - and you don't have to make cards to do it - click here for more information.

Last week I totally forgot about the Friendly Fill-Ins, but I though I'd give it a try again this week.

1.  In the Spring, I look forward to Spring flowers and trees blooming.  Particularly the violets and the redbuds.

2.  I would love to have a Spring tea party.  I did have one in the spring the year I turned 50 and I had so much fun putting it together, I just don't know if I would have the energy to do it again.

3.  Few know this about me, but I always wanted an older brother/sibling.  I was the oldest of 5 siblings and didn't have anyone to show me the ropes so to speak and thusly was not up with all the hip stuff growing up.  And as my daughter once put it about herself, I had no "asshole radar" and my first "boyfriends" certainly fit into the a-hole category.  Luckily, I found another "oldest sibling" who wasn't all that hip either, and we've been together ever since.

4.  No one can deny that we are ready for Spring and all it's beauty.