Life Is Beautiful

Happy Thursday, everyone! How are you all doing today? I haven't had much time for getting crafty this week, though I have been spending a lot of time in my office. My office is actually our spare bedroom, which we also put my lovely rolltop writing desk in so that I would have a quiet (relatively) space to spin my stories. When I started papercrafting early this year, I had to do it on the floor, because I didn't want to ruin my beautiful desk. Then about a month or so ago, my husband found a good deal on a table that matched my desk (all from Sam's) so we put that in there as well. So it's my office/craft room/spare bedroom. As I'm sure you can imagine, papercrafting tends to grow and migrate like a vine, quickly eating up any free space it's given. Trouble is, my sister-in-law is coming to visit from Germany next weekend, and she needs a place to sleep! So I've been busy cleaning, purging (papers, not supplies, my writer's group leader likes to give out a LOT of handouts), organizing, and sprucing all week.

Today, however, I was wandering around the house picking up as I dialed my brother-in-law's number in Germany to wish him a happy birthday, and when he answered I sat down on the nearest chair, which happened to be at my papercrafting table. As we talked, I picked up a punch and started punching some shapes and before I knew it I was assembling a little flower. He passed me on to my sister-in-law (his wife, not the one who is coming) and by the time I hung up I had pretty much completed a card! It was kinda nice to just create something off-the-cuff like that, without really planning anything out. Here it is:


As I said, I started with a flower punch by E.K. Success, and punched out five layers (only used 4) from some patterned paper by K&Company -- their bridal mat pack, which was the only paper pad on my table. I curled the petals with my thumb, then paper-pierced a hole in the center and put a brad through to hold it together. I smushed down a yellow button in the center with a glue dot.

I chose another green lacy pattern from the pad, and used a piece of leftover pink print (DCWV - The Sweet Stack) from the birthday card I made last week. It had bright pink glitter all around the edges, but I didn't think that it really went with the shabby chic style of the flower, so I cut my piece to cover the card (white Bazzill) from the middle. I cut a smaller square from the green lacey paper and rounded the top corners with my new We R Memory Keepers corner chomper (Yay! It just arrived last weekend), then added some adhesive ribbon from K.I. Memories.

I first wrote "Happy Birthday" across the bottom, but I didn't like the way it looked, so I cut yet another piece of patterned paper from that pad and stamped "Life Is Beautiful" and a little flower flourish from Studio G in Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink in Chestnut Roan.

Then I attached the flower over the ribbon with glue dots, and popped that green piece off with dimentional adhesive. For a finishing touch, I drew a small dot line all around the green paper to tie in those polkadots and break up the pink background a little. And lastly, I rounded the bottom corners with the Corner Chomper (yay, again!).


Well, I hope you enjoyed my card for today! It's not something that's typically my style, but I can think of a few people who might enjoy it, so I'll be sending it (or more likely, hand-delivering with that bulky flower) to one of them in the near future. Have a great night!