Birthday Card and some Linky Parties

The weather can't decide what it wants to do these days, it is rainy, hot, cold, dry, you name it.

I made this birthday card for a co-worker whose birthday happened to fall on a business trip we took recently.  I'm glad I took a picture of it before our trip because it didn't travel well, it was a wee bit squished when we arrived - lol.

While I was contemplating what to make, I made my rounds around blog-land and decided to follow the sketch from this weeks Sweet Stampin Challenge Blog to inspire my card.

So what do you think of my interpretation of this sketch? To make it more fun, I decided to try some colors I don't use very often and added some fun dies and followed my inspiration muse. I added the Pink "ribbon"  to soften up the card.


I am participating in the following challenges:

• Sweet Stampin Challenge Blog - Sketch Challenge - Follow the sketch; keep it simple, dress it up as much as you like so long as we can see the layout on your creations
• Make it Monday #144 b - with Nicecrane Designs - Ignacio is generously providing a $20 gift voucher to our winner! to be in the running to win the prize from our sponsor this week just leave a comment for another entry. Be sure to mention you saw them on Make It Monday

I used my Marianne Designs - Creatables Die on this card because I hadn't used them before :-)




I hope you have a wonderful day!

Mother's Day Card and Free Printable

I wanted to share a sweet Mother's Day card I made.  I really, really love square cards, don't you? Do you have a style of card that you keep going back to time and time again?

I know that the colors are not what you would think of for a Mother's Day card, but I wanted to do something different and I really loved this paper.  I then began punching flowers and layering them. Of course, no card is complete without some sparkle, so I added some 'gemstones' to the flowers :-) Flowers aren't complete without a butterfly, don't you agree?

Don't you love the Mother's Day badge? This is not one of mine, this is from one of the blogs I follow "Netty's Cards" you can find her freebie here.

Challenges:

• I am joining in on the "As You Like It Challenge" - As I mentioned above, I love butterflies and my Martha butterfly punch is my favorite!!! You will have seen this butterfly on many of my projects!  This is their very 1st challenge, hop on over and take a peak - they are also looking for DT members if you are interested!!!  I love the fact that these challenges run for 2 weeks - for those of you busy mom's like me you actually have a chance to get your project together!
• I am also joining the "Simply Create Too - Anything Goes" Challenge - you have plenty of time to get your project together for this one as well, it closes on May 23rd! Great!!!

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Remembering Those in Boston - Sympathy Card

I sit here and keep erasing everything I write. What can you say? It was such a horrible thing to happen. And to think that someone planned this, with the hopes of hurting people is unfathomable.  I suppose the fact that I cannot imagine why someone would do this is reassuring.  There is no justification or excuse for the brutality of releasing a bomb.

As a parent my heart breaks for the 8 year old who was cheering on his father, and makes me ever so grateful that I can put my arms around my son, which I am doing a lot more these days.  I'm certain that I'm not the only one. When you sit back, you cannot help but mourn for the parents and family of the other victims, the woman who was going to be married and the young man whose parents sent him to another country to go to college.

The card I am sharing with you today is a Sympathy card for those who were lost and all those poor souls who have survived and are fighting to make their way back from the terrible wounds and gut wrenching maiming.  I have a friend who didn't make it to the marathon this year and I have a friend whose cousin was one of those hurt, one of the lucky ones who will get to go home soon.

For the card, I mounted one of my favorite photographs of the dogwood tree outside my front door.  I love butterflies and what they symbolize for me, hope.  I read a quote somewhere that I will have to create into a printable "Butterflies are self propelled flowers" by R.H. Heinlein or "Butterflies are flowers with wings" I think this one is an adaptation of a Robert Frost poem.

As I leave you today, I hope these butterflies bring you some hope today.

Linking Up Here:
Make It Monday - Anything Goes
The Answer Is Chocolate - BFF Link Party

Be Safe!

Butterfly Giveaway Pictures and A Story

Hello Again!

I have been building up the courage to share this piece of art with each of you.  Yes, I have been afraid to share it with anyone because it is very different from anything I have ever done before, and I am a chicken!

For my One World One Heart giveaway, I knew that I wanted to make a Quilled Butterfly! I wasn't sure what it would look like, but I knew that once I started creating it that the butterfly would find it's way out of the papers I was using and emerge as it was intended... and I was right.  Over the course of many hours and several days, she took shape.  I am so proud of the way she turned out.  I tried to get a close up of her so that you would be able to see all the little details.  I did not start with a pattern, just strips of paper.  The first thing that I did was create the general shape of the wings.  I started with a loose shape in the black quilling paper, I used a nice 1/4 inch wide paper for this project.  I wanted the design to be open, so I just made scrolls and various strips and colors of paper along the way.  I wanted to point out the special little hearts... you will see many heart shapes in the wings.  I did this to show the love that was put into this creation.

I definitely wanted her to sparkle, so I used glitter paper as the backing.  I lightly traced the wing that I had created on the glitter paper and cut it out then glued the wing to the paper.  You can see the sparkle/glitter in the close up. I also added some jewels to the project as well to make her happy and sparkly.

I don't know how many times I changed my mind about what I was going to place her in.  I started out thinking a 4x6 frame, but in the end my butterfly emerged a bit too large for such a small frame.  I have had a growing desire to paint and that desire pushed its way through and I ended up creating a mixed-media painting... Please be kind, this is my first true venture in anything outside of ATCs with painting... This is 8x10 canvas board - Yikes!!!

I hand cut flower petals and leaves to make one large echinacea flower and then you will see that I hand painted others directly on the canvas.  I painted the petals a beautiful "sugar plum" pink color (this is a yummy color and I know that I will use it again).  I covered the entire (painted) canvas board with Alene's Paper Glaze, I know, I LOVE this stuff!!! I use it a lot and I think I am going to be using so much more of it!!! I wish it weren't so expensive... so maybe I'll have to curtail my addiction a bit - lol.....  I don't think you can really see from the picture the beautiful shine on the flowers and background... but believe me it is there.

I love quotes, and selected a quote from Goethe - "Remember to live" that I had from a scrapbook set that I received as a gift many years ago (sorry, don't know what it was anylonger).... And that ultimately is what this butterfly and flower represent... the carefree butterfly flittering about is just enjoying the day... I find that I think I personally need to do more of this and wanted to send some of that free spirit to the winner of my giveaway.

Amy, I hope that you enjoy this gift and that she brings you joy and a bit of inspiration!

Update: I have linked this to the following linky parties / challenges:

Aly's Sunday Challenge

I

Hugs,
Antonella :-)

Shared Quilling

Hello and Happy April!

I wanted to share a special quilled magnet that a friend of mine Lynn Smith made. She sent me a picture and has graciously allowed me to post it here.

Lynn took a piece of chipboard and covered it with paper that has the look of linen. Then she distressed it before adding the quilled pieces on top. You will see that she has created the most precious punched roses. No easy task to make them look like real roses, they provide me with lots of grief when I try to shape the paper. :-)

Lynn really did a great job on this, don't you think?

I was so excited because she used the Spreuer Butterfly pattern previously posted here to make her butterfly. I hope that everyone tries to use some of the patterns you find here and include them in a design of your choice. If you want to send them to me I will gladly share them here.

Remember, I am sharing these patterns and instructions with everyone so that you try them out and use them on your projects, all I ask is that you mention where you got the pattern and send people back here.

Enjoy!
Copyright Antonella DeFalco

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