Color Your Day Lessons from Altenew

I reccently signed up with Altenew Academy for their Color Your Day classes which ran from July 16th throught July 21st. I was working on some invitations for an anniversary party (more on that in my next post) and was unable to take the lessons on the days they were scheduled.

Today was my first time attempting to view the class (I have access to it on the Academy's site). Lesson 1 is all about being inspired by color. The instructor provided us with her inspiration for the cards she made and urged us to open a magazine, scroll through Pinterest or anywhere we could find inspiration for creating our card.

My inspiration came from her color combination, brown and turqoise blue. I changed it up a little as I noticed there was a hint of orange in the photo she provided, so the colors I used were brown and orange.

I started out by stamping the Altenew Peony Bouquet stamp to my brown cardstock using Versamark and embossing with Stampin' Up's clear embossing powder. After heat setting the image, I grabbed the bottle of bleach from the kitchen, added some to the bottle cap and using a paint brush, painted inside the lines of the stamped images. Once dry, the backround of the flowers were light enough for me to color with my Copic Markers (Chrome Orange #YR04 and Buttercup Yellow #Y21). I added some Glossy Accents to the flowers for a little dimension.

I finished the card by die cutting the words "With Sympathy" three (3) times to make the words pop on the cardstock, then added some orange glitter for some sparkle. I further embellished the card with yellow adhesive gems.

Here is my finished card:

Finding Joy

As I read today's entry in one of my devotionals, God Calling: by Two Listeners, I was led to write the following in my journal: "Finding joy in doing my will means listening obediently for your call to step out on faith. It means reaching out to those in need even if you don't know how you're called to help them; it means speaking truth even if that truth hurts; it means hugging and loving the unlovable. Finding joy in your life can only happen when you find joy in me".

God does not call us to find joy in our own self-serving efforts, but in reaching out to others and building a relationship based on the love that he is calling us to offer the world (even those who hurt and persecute us). Remember John 3:16? Yes, that is the kind of love the God of love is calling us to give: sacrificial, limitless, brimming over -- love for the unlovable, the marginalized, the broken, the sick... the list goes on.

How do we carry out His will to love as he loved? By finding joy in doing all he has called us to do for all, even those we think are not worthy of love. How can this be achieved? When we spend time in His presence loving and listening; allowing him to cleanse us from the inside out, showing us who we are in him, and healing from our past sins, from the chains that have kept us bound and chained to our past and the lie the enemy wants us to keep believing. Once we own up and accept our past for what it is -- the past -- and we discover who and whose we are, God will use us and guide us into obedience, and once we obey, we will be willing (and able) to act. Abiding in God's presence will lead us on a path to finding joy in our lives.

Embossed With Sympathy message on metallic cardstock

Be Ready in Season or out of Season

2 Timothy 4:2 states, "preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season;" Well, I am literally living that scripture.  The past few weeks have seen its share of sickness, hospitalization, and sudden deaths in my circle. There have been joyous occasions like birthdays and graduations.

I say all that to say this: It pays to be ready.  Last night I stayed up and put together 5 cards. One was this sympathy card. I used the Anna Griffin embossing folder to emboss the card with my Cuttlebug, then adhered gray ribbon (Stampin' Up Basic Gray) and embellished with dot pearls.  This was a quick and easy card.  

The next card was a Get Well card for a friend. She actually is getting two cards as she just celebrated a birthday. For the Get Well card, I attempted to do the spotlight technique using the background paper. I didn't have all of the circle punches I needed to cut several sizes, so I contented myself with just the two I cut out. I used Copic Markers to make the flowers pop and finished off by adding crystals to embellish the card. This other card was made by using a Robert Jackson's digital stamp and Copic Markers to color in the hair and skin. I used Gimp to add pattern to the dress and finished embellishing with a Doily I had in my stash.

The next card is for a young lady who lost her mother last November.  It is really a card of encouragement for her as she faces life without her mother.  I made the background using watercolor paper and following the Die Cut Stencils technique HERE.



 

And the last card is a thank you card for a gentleman. I don't know about you card makers out there, but I find myself lost when it comes to designing cards for men. Oftentimes, I have to get inspired by other works. This card, however, I had to visualize and do on my own. I used a scallop punch to cut one end of the light blue cardstock, then embossed a scrap of the blue cardstock and used a 1" hole punch to punch out the circles to attach to the light blue paper. I then cut some arrows from MTC using my Silhouette machine, and finished by attaching a Thank You sentiment.

 Making these cards relate to the scripture above. I need to be ready because I never know when I'm going to have to send cards to those who are in need, hurting or celebrating. It's best if I'm ready and just reach for a card, address it and mail it off.  What do you think?