For Laura

I was texting with my friend, Laura, yesterday and I asked her what her favorite colour was. It's her birthday coming up on Sunday and I wanted to work on a project for her and didn't want to do it in a colour she hated. Well, Laura's favorite colour is purple, so I went to the scrapbook store today and bought some purple paper. More about this in a bit.

Another friend came over tonight to stamp for a bit. My big goal was to come up with a template for my Christmas card. I'm going to a retreat next weekend and I want to be able to work on my project for Laura and on my Christmas cards. I think I came up with something I can live with. It doesn't scream, I love it, but I don't hate it, so I'm going to let it sit for a couple of days and see what comes to me.

After that, I decided I wanted to make another card. I flipped through my "A Card A Day" book and found what I thought was the card for October 21. I made my own version and I kind of liked it. I was trying to pick a colour and naturally, reached for navy. I decided I needed to branch out a bit, since I've done a lot with blue lately (with working on Eric's scrapbook). So, I thought about my conversation with Laura yesterday and started looking through the purple paper. It was fun as the entire time I was stamping, I was thinking of her. I've never actually met her, but she makes me smile and laugh and so it was fun to create something with her in mind.


I decided to do a 4x4" card since the one I was copying was a square. I really like this size because it doesn't seem as daunting. I cut the light purple cardstock to 3.75" x 2.5" and I cut the dark purple to 4" across. Then I used my Tim Holtz Ornate Border Die and cut along the bottom. I trimmed it so it would fit and glued them down.

I made the flowers using white cardstock and my Tim Holtz Flower die. I stamped "French Script" (Hero Arts - I LOVE this stamp and use it all the time) in Victorian Velvet Distress ink. I really like the Distress Inks because they react so well with water and you can do so many things with them. After I stamped, I took my water brush and moved the ink just a bit. Then I took my brush and touched it to the ink pad and darkened the edges of each flower to give them some depth. I like the look of an inked edge, but on small intricate pieces, it's impossible to do directly with the ink pad. Which is what lead to my discovery tonight of just picking up colour directly from the pad and adding it wherever I wanted. I added a brad to each flower and then assembled the card. The saying (Penny Black) was stamped in Versafine Onyx Black in the top left corner.

The card doesn't really look like the one I was copying, but that's OK. I bought this book because there is a card dedicated to every day and I thought that when I was lacking motivation or creativity, I could just look at today's date and copy a card to get me started. Of course, when it was all said and done, I realized that I had copied the September 21st card and not the October 21st one, but oh well. (Did you know that apparently, September 19th is International Talk like a Pirate Day? Nope? Neither did I. I'm sad I missed that card as it would have been a fun one to make).

I dedicate this card to my friend, Laura and although I won't get her surprise to her by Sunday, I want to wish her a Happy Birthday anyway.