Breathe Deeply and a Hop

Hi friends!  It's the 5th of the month, which means it's Diva Inspirations Hop time!  And along with that, it's the first Monday of the month, so it's also contest week at Mojo Monday!  I'm the first stop along the hop, so if you're just popping in, grab a treat and settle in for some Verve inspiration. There's a prize drawing from all the hop comments, so be sure to leave a little comment love as you hop about.

This month's Diva Inspirations challenge is Font Focus.  Totally up my alley, and I chose to use sentiments from the Remember This set, paired with butterflies from the new again Die Sidekicks set.  And since the inspiration graphic was mixed-media, I decided to pull out some gesso and get my hands dirty.

The meaning... Life has been throwing me a few curve balls lately and I really wanted to just kind of let it all go with this card.  To remember that this life is lovely and to breathe deeply, fly freely and nestle into the small quiet moments that make life big.  To remember that even when the edges of our days are jagged and ragged and messy, if we only look for them, we'll find that there are beautiful moments of hope and possibility and peace that flutter all around us.  So that was the heart I was trying to portray with this card.

The messy part... I started with a piece of so saffron cardstock that I wiped gesso all over.  I heat set it so it would dry aster, then began to stamp the Oh happy day stamp all over the front of it in So Saffron.  Next I sponged on some wild honey and scattered straw distress inks and sprayed the whole thing with water and wiped off some of the ink on the gesso.  I then went back into some of the whitest parts and stamped the Oh happy day sentiment again.  in the corner I embossed the breathe deeply sentiment in black, then distressed the edges, adding just a bit of pumice stone ink here and there to dirty things up.

My square layer (which you can only see a triangle of) is from the Hello Sunshine paper pad  (I love that it has the lyrics of You Are My Sunshine on it) and I also distressed it and added a bit of gesso.  The butterflies from Die Sidekicks are embossed in black onto so saffron cardstock, wiped with gesso, then I added in a bit of watercoloring with wild honey and scattered straw markers and a waterbrush, then hand trimmed to pop up on the card.  The love this and life sentiments are stamped onto a hand cut banner, sponged with a stencil and then wrapped around a stick pin.  I used the same stencil on the fly freely panel and added a bit of distressing and gesso there as well.

So, that's the how-to and the what-for. Thanks for stopping by today.  There's some super exciting news on the Verve Blog today that's going to make for a lot less stress on my creative soul, which has been feeling a bit battered and bruised and taped back together this past year or two.  Be sure to head on over there for the announcement and all the deets on prizes and deadlines for the blog hop and challenge!

Next up on the hop is Amy!

	1. Julee	9. Susan
	2. Amy	10. Chaitali
	3. Anya	11. Stacey
	4. Betty	12. Maureen
	5. Karen	13. Marisa
	6. Sankari	14. Andrea
	7. Sarah	14. Charmaine
	8. Sony	14. Christyne

Mojo Monday 344

Enabler's List
Stamps: Remember This, Die Sidekicks (Verve Stamps)
Paper: so saffron, basic gray (SU!), Hello Sunshine (Pink Paislee), cream (Neenah)
Ink: so saffron (SU!), tuxedo black (Memento Luxe), scattered straw, wild honey and pumice stone distress inks (Ranger)
Accessories:  gesso, clear embossing powder (Judikins), stick pin, paper distresser, Dot Fade Layering Stenciel (Tim Holtz)


And last but not least, Verve's May special is 25% off some fabulous floral and butterfly sets.