Thoughts and Prayers....

Finally I'm back with a project to share! This is not the My Time to Create Challenge that you are used to playing along with every Saturday, the team is taking a break this week to focus on sending the kids back to school. My daughter doesn't go back until September 8th, but she is also 15 and going into her Junior year, so it's not as much work getting her ready as it is for some of my team members who have elementary aged kids :O)

So, I thought I would share the card I made for Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge (MTSC36). If you haven't played along with Mercy's sketches yet, you should really check it out! Something about her sketches have me picturing what to do with them as soon as I see the sketch. Not like some that are ultra confusing and un-inspiring to me.

I started making this card based on this gorgeous K&Co patterned paper that I picked up half price at Michaels. I knew I wanted to stitch the stems of a couple of flowers to the main panel and add a sentiment at the bottom, but I was struggling with which sentiment to add. Then I received a message from my sister that her very close friend's husband died yesterday.

This couple has acted like a second set of parents to my sister, and grandparents to my nephew since he was born. My sister, Kelly, is a single mom and has been since Austin was born 13 years ago. So, the love that Lucy and Craig have shown the two of them was always cherished...they became a part of the family. My nephew even calls them Grandma and Grandpa ♥ It's with a sad heart that I found the sentiment I needed in order to make this a card for dear Lucy.

For the flowers, I stamped the stem in Olive using PTI's Floral Frenzy set and stamped a partial stem for the flower on the left. I then free-handed the punched holes along the stems and stitched them by hand using craft thread. I punched the flowers with a couple of Marvy Uchida daisy punches and adhered them with glue dots. I folded the petals up to give them more dimension and added pearl rhinestones to the centers.

For the background accent panel notice I die cut only the bottom of the panel. You can do this by putting your cs under and over the die. The bottom of the cs went under the die to be cut, and the top came through the die and rested on top of it while I cut. I used the same technique to cut the bottom of the main card.

I just love the elegant lines of this Spellbinders Curved Rectangles die ♥ BTW...7kidscollegefund.com is the cheapest place that I have found these dies. If you find a company that sells for less than 7kids, please let me know! I love a good deal :O)