My First Easter Card

I have two favorite seasons: spring and autumn. Although today's temps are hovering in the 30s, the sun is shining, so I can deal with a bit more cold.

Yesterday, I saw tiny red buds on one of our trees! I'm guessing it's a red maple; I don't care. It's a sign of life and the greening of things, and that's what has me excited!

This card was loosely inspired by Kerin Sylvester's card, which I saw on Nancy Riley's week in review.

I went to my stamp stash and pulled out the much neglected Sweet Stems set, mostly because its images are similar to those used by Kerin. Once I got stamping, my card went in a different direction than Kerin's, but I like to give cred where cred is due. I used the largest flower spray and stamped it around a 3.5" x 3" piece of Whisper White.

I chose Wild Wasabi as my ink; why, I'm not sure. That's the way of the creative muse, I guess. I pulled out my Yo Yo Yellow Stampin' Write Marker, another interesting choice for me, since I don't tend to use my Bold Brights very often. Why question what works: that's my motto!

I mounted the white piece on a 3 5/8" x 3 1/8" piece of WW and then pulled out my YYY. Seriously, I can't believe I'm making a card with this bright yellow, but what says--SHOUTS--spring louder than YELLOW?

Then I realized that I now have a sentiment in my collection that I've never had before: Happy Easter. Normally, I don't make Easter cards because I don't believe the holiday to be about bunnies and spring, but I don't have any cross images either, so this is the closest I'm going to get to a card that speaks to the celebration. Imagine those flowers are lilies!

I stamped Happy Easter from Well Scripted and then set about to create a mat for it using the new Scallop Corner and Scallop Border Punches. FUN TIMES, I tell you! For this, I have Gretchen Barron to thank. This demonstrator figured out the math for creating these beautiful squares and rectangles. Her tutorial is here. I am SO thankful for the generosity of crafters on the internet!! I'm so math challenged that I never would've figured this out on my own. Kudos, Gretchen!

The one I used was 2 7/8" x 1 15/16". Note that this is the measurement of the rectangle BEFORE I used the punches on it, not what it measures afterward. You punch the corners first and then use the border punch to punch out what's left. Doesn't it look great?!

The ribbon is also WW, and it's mounted on .75" strips of Whisper White. I know some of these card elements aren't current, but use what you have before you spend more money: that's another motto of mine.

Happy Thursday! I hope you have a great weekend. I'm wondering: is anyone going without something for Lent? If so, why? I'd love to hear from you on this.