H.O.P.E.

I hope you are having a restful and rejuvenating summer. My daughter and I just got back from a humanitarian trip to an incredibly impoverished area of Mexico. It is my second trip to this same area and it again makes me marvel at the ingenuity of those people and the incredible luxury of my simple life in Canada.

I made this card from a wee pile of scraps that were on my desk.

I had the lattice cut out from a card I did more than a year ago, but rejected this element. It sat on my desk gathering dust (literally). As I am card making again, I have been using very safe and comfortable supplies because I haven't had the time to be adventurous or experimental with my crafting. I am sure that will come with time (unintentional pun there!), but for now I need to be careful how I spend my time.

This vellum butterfly was harvested from a project I did a few years ago for i {heart} papers. That was a favourite project, but had decorative purposes only, so I salvaged the pretty butterflies off 3 Asian inspired candle lanterns and they have been sitting protected in my desk drawer since. While the pale blue butterfly doesn't MATCH the designer paper on the card, it GOES with the light and airy feel of the card, so I used it as a lovely embellishment.

I am a huge fan of tlc Creations digital sentiments. Paulette does a fantastic job, and she is lovely and personable. And her digital sentiments are second to none. (P.S. this is not a sponsored endorsement. I'm no longer on any design teams.) I really love that I can re-size digital images to suit my purposes, and I have a real preference for digital sentiments over stamped sentiments. The sentiment I used here has been sitting in my little pile. I printed off a bunch of sentiments and some images just in case I had nothing to do and really wanted to make a card and they would be ready and available. I could make 3 cards a week for the remainder of the year and not use up my pile. I better get busy!!

I use sentiments more when I am short on time, because there is no colouring involved. This card took just less than 30 minutes to make. In the future, my designs will feature simpler layouts and techniques due to necessity. I hope you will enjoy it!!

stamps; hope (tlc creations)
paper; meadow (mme), flintstone, coconut swirl, powdered snow (bazzill), vellum (unknown)
ink; pumice stone (distress ink)
accessories; bigz lattice, beautiful butterflies (sizzix), labels 10, mega ovals lg (spellbinders), adhesive pearls (kaiser)