Grace is Sufficient

If you're looking for my Season's Givings Blog Hop post click here

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Hi friends! It's the first Friday of a new month and that means it's time for me to bring you a brand new Viva la Verve sketch. This month's sketch has some fun layers. I hope you enjoy it!  The challenge is open for the whole month, play along as often as you like and Verve stamps are not required (but we do love to see 'em, wink wink).

Back in November, I picked up this Rose Quartz paper pad and ephemera and got so busy with holiday activities that I didn't have a chance to break it open. The fun little feathers in the ephemera pack just make my heart go pitter patter, so my only stamping here is ithe 2 Corinthians verse from Butterfly Grace. It seemed the perfect verse to send to the person I had on my heart when I made the card. A seam binding bow and the layered pieces of ephemera accent things and the pretty papers do the rest.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a seriously fabulous first weekend of the new year!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Butterfly Grace (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Rose Quartz (Prima), black, white
Ink: Black
Accessories: Rose Quartz ephemera (Prima), seam binding, Falling Leaves Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE)

Other Links
Viva la Verve January Sketch Challenge

Beautiful Galaxy

Hi friends. Welcome to another Mojo Monday.  Since it's one of those months with 5 Mondays in it, I've got a square sketch for you this week. It's got lots of layers, but you could drop one or two and still have a beautiful card.

I had this mixed media galaxy background I made a while back sitting on my desk and thought it would be the perfect backdrop for my card. It was made with distress paint, distress oxide inks, a neo watercolor II crayon and white paint.

Next I masked off part of the verse from Butterfly Grace to fit my stitched oval shape and stamped in onyx black.  The butterfly is stamped on watercolor paper in archival black and then colored with watercolor pencils and accented with glitter and die cut with the coordinating Graceful Butterflies Die Set .  For the mat behind the sentiment, I used collage medium to adhere some dictionary paper to watercolor paper before die cutting. Then I tried watercoloring with the same watercolor pencils, but everything beaded up because of the collage medium  Luckily for me, I had just received some transparent watercolor ground, so added a layer of that to my oval, let it dry and it took the watercolor beautifully.  Yay! I added some distressed edges and black mats here and there and did some flicking with watercolor pencils and a wet brush to make the largest white panel.  And I opted for washi over the rectangle layer, rather than under so more of those stripes would show.

There was much debate in my house over whether or not the butterfly should be added. All three of my boys said yes to the butterfly, even though I was leaning to just let the sentiment do the work. After I added it in and a few little stars at the bottom, I think they made the right choice! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous start to your week. For more inspiration with this sketch, hop on over to the Mojo Monday blog for a peek at what the other designers are sharing today.  If you like measurements, the ones I used to draw up the sketch are listed below.

Card Base: 4.25 x 4.25"

Layer 1: 4" x 4"

Layer 2: 2.75" x 2.75" (optional inner mat of 2.5" x 2.5" mat)

Layer 3: 0.5" x 3.75" strip or ribbon/washi

Layer 4: 3.25" x 1" (optional inner mat of 3 x 0.75")

Layer 5: 2.5" x 1.5" oval (or other shape)

And if you're looking to do a little shopping today, Verve has a little Summer Kick-Off sale going with free shipping on US orders over $25.  And with some of our favoritest stamps ever on sale 25% off, and retiring sets at 60% off, it just might be the perfect time to add a little Verve to your collection. {wink}

Enabler's List

Stamps: Butterfly Grace (Verve Stamps)
Paper: watercoor paper, dictionary paper, black
Ink: onyx black (Versafine), archival black (Ranger), Vintage Lover watercolor pencils (Prima), charcoal pencil (dollar store), distress paint, distress oxide inks (Ranger), white paint, gesso, Neo Watercolor II crayon (Caran d'Ache)
Accessories: Graceful Butterflies Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), stitched ovals dies (cottage cuts), glitter (Finnabair by Prima), washi tape, paper piercer, paper distresser, pearl star clusters, watercolor ground (Daniel Smith)

Life is But a Dream

Hi friends! I'm popping in today with a quick card I made the other day.  Thanks to Lydia, I recently got a palette of Daniel Smith watercolors. After initially swatching them out, I felt compelled to rearrange them in rainbow order and re-swatch.  As I was doing this, I couldn't bear to waste any of the beautiful color, so cleaned my brush on a piece of watercolor paper in between each color.  I loved the way my clean-up page turned out, so decided to use it as is for the background for my card.

The butterflies are from the Butterfly Grace set, and I embossed them in white onto sections of the purples and blues from my clean-up paper, then cut out with the coordinating Graceful Butterflies Die Set.  I accented each butterfly with a bit more of the purple and teal watercolors, then added a simple, yet fitting sentiment from the Learning to Sail stamp set.  Easy peasy!

Well, that's all from me today.  I've been playing a lot with my new watercolors and also a bit of experimenting with my gelli plate this week, but they haven't made it onto any projects yet.  How about you, what have you been working on?

Enabler's List
Stamps: Butterfly Grace, Learning to Sail (Verve Stamps)
Paper: kids watercolor paper (Michaels)
Ink: watercolors (Daniel Smith), Versamark, onxy black (Versafine)
Accessories: Graceful Butterflies Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), white detail embossing powder (Judikins), paper distresser

Colorful Grace

Hi friends! It's Monday again and I'm back with another Mojo Monday sketch for you. I hope you find it inspiring.  I had a lovely Mother's Day weekend with my family and didn't get home until 10pm last night, so had to throw a card together super quick.  Luckily I had some mixed-media backgrounds at the ready that made this card a breeze to put together.

The background panel is an emboss resist on gessoed cardstock with the solid distressed butterfly from Butterfly Grace. I then did the background with Magicals Shakers in pink and yellow.  A strip of Tim Holtz tissue paper was mod podged on to finish that piece. This background has the diagonal strip going the opposite direction of the sketch, but it was already completely finished and matched pretty close, so I went with it. Sometimes you just have to roll with the things that are put before you, right?

The aqua piece was also done previously with Magicals on gessoed cardstock, then I added texture paste stars with a stencil.  I cut the small and large butterfly from Graceful Butterflies Die Set from this same panel, then layered the antennae die cut in black.

The 2 Corinthians 12:9 verse is stamped on watercolor paper and then colored with markers and accented with sparkly glitter. I spliced a long scallop rectangle die cut to create a mat just the size I needed for the verse .

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a wonderfully creative week. For more inspiration with this sketch, head on over to the Mojo Monday blog to see what the other designers are sharing. And if you like to have measurements, the ones I used to draw up the sketch are below.

Mojo Monday 497 Sketch

Card Base: 4.25 x 5.5"

Layer 1: 4" x 5.25"

Layer 2: 1.75" x 5.5" (trim off edges)

Layer 3: 2.25" x 4.75"

Layer 4: 2.5" x 4"

Enabler's List
Stamps: Butterfly Grace (Verve Stamps)
Paper: watercolor paper, white cardstock, black cardstock
Ink: versamark (Tsukineko), archival black (Ranger), Magicals Shakers (Lindy's Stamp Gang)
Accessories: Graceful Butterflies Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), tissue wrap (Tim Holtz Ideaology), long scallop rectangle nestabilities (Spellbinders), black nuvo drops, sparkle crystal drops (Tonic), star stencil (DecoArt)

Golden Splatters

Hi friends! I'm back today with a card I had intended to add to my New Release Blog Hop post, but in the chaos of behind the scenes work on the release, I totally spaced adding it in.  But that means it gets its own little post!  Hooray!

I love the little butterfly in the new Graceful Butterflies Die Set .  It's teeny tiny and just perfect for adding some flair to a card.  Here I let the die do most of the work, cutting several teeny butterflies from a piece of cardstock I had prepped with Magical Shakers.  The shakers have this little hint of a glimmer to them, and I just love how it looks!

I embossed the Ecclesiastes 3:11 verse from Butterfly Grace in gold in the corner of an A2 card base, then added the colorful little butterflies.  I felt some splatters were called for, so covered up the verse and splattered on a mix of mono liquid glue and water, then sprinkled with gold embossing powder before heat setting.  Love the look, and it was so easy to achieve!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you have a fabulously creative day!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Butterfly Grace (Verve Stamps)
Paper: cream cardstock
Ink: Versamark, Magical Shakers (Lindy's Stamp Gang)
Accessories: Graceful Butterflies Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), mono liquid glue (Tombow), gold detail embossing powder (Judikins)

Verve New Release Blog Hop

Welcome to Verve's May New Release Spotlight Hop! It's been a while, but I'm so excited to say that there's something new in the Verve shop today!  To celebrate, the Divas are putting on a blog hop sharing our first looks at the new Butterfly Grace stamp set and coordinating Graceful Butterflies die set.

And since we love to share, we're hosting a little giveaway. Just leave a little shout out in the comments at each stop along the hop and you'll be in the prize drawing for the new Butterfly Grace stamp set and Graceful Butterflies die set. Deadline for commenting is Monday, May 15. Happy hopping!

Julee Charmaine Christyne Laurie Maureen Marisa Teresa

I'm just so happy to say it's release day! It's been a long stretch for me as my family has endured much sickness over this past winter. But during one of the lulls in between viruses, I sat down and designed this set centered on the theme of grace. Amazing Grace has always been one of my favorite hymns and lately I've been trying to teach my boys about grace. Not only the wonderful gift of God's grace, but how to be gracious and kind to ourselves and to others, ESPECIALLY when it's undeserved.  So thoughts of grace have been swirling around in my head as I look for opportunities to instill a gracious heart in my boys. And out of my heart, came this set.

My card today is done in the mixed-media style, the thing that seems to really get my creative soul going these days.  I started the background with distress oxide inks in spiced marmalade, worn lipstick and broken china.  Next I added a piece of Melange tissue wrap with collage podge.  I did a bit more distress ink smooshing and spritzing, then started adding some white back in by pouncing gesso on the piece with a q-tip.  I followed this with more q-tip pouncing in tumbled glass, spun sugar and spiced marmalade.  I wanted a feeling of movement to the card, so added more gesso with a jar lid in little concentric circles.

The amazing grace sentiment from Butterfly Grace is embossed in black onto a torn piece of background I had made at the same time with distress inks and tissue wrap.  The outline butterfly is stamped in black, then I filled it in with the solid butterfly, stamped with worn lipstick distress oxide ink.  I wanted to add a bit more white back into the design, so pounded lightly with some mono liquid glue and then sprinkled some Frantage shabby white embossing powder.  This was the very first card I made with this set and the dies hadn't arrived yet, so I fussy cut the butterfly and popped up next to the sentiment to finish things off.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous time hopping and would love to hear what you think of the set.  For another chance to win, be sure to check out the Verve Stamps page on Facebook.

Next up on the hop is the fabulous Charmaine.

Enabler's List
Stamps: Butterfly Grace (Verve Stamps)
Paper: white
Ink: broken china, spiced marmalade, worn lipstick distress oxide (Ranger), gesso, tumbled glass, spun sugar, spiced marmalade distress paint (Ranger), white gel pen
Accessories: Melange Tissue Wrap (Tim Holtz Ideaology), Frantage Shabby White embossing powder (Stampendous), washi tape, black embossing powder, q-tips, paper distresser, Collage Podge

Beautiful Mojo

Hi friends! Another Monday has rolled around and that means it's time for a brand new  Mojo Monday sketch. This one is pretty simple, with a large focal panel for lots of options.  I can't wait to see what everyone creates.  For more inspiration with the sketch, head on over to the Mojo Monday blog to see what the other designers are sharing today.

Verve is having a mini release tomorrow (hooray!), so I'm sneaking a peek at the new Butterfly Grace set for my card today.  I started my focal panel by brushing some worn lipstick distress ink on the bottom half.  Next I pulled out my peony color bursts and made a splashy area (that's the technical term, ya know?).  After it dried, I stamped the Ecclesiastes 3:11 verse in the corner in archival black, then made some small splatters everywhere with a bit of watered down color burst.

The butterfly is stamped on vellum in versamark and then embossed in white.  It's cut with the coordinating Graceful Butterflies Die Set and then glued down with mono adhesive.  I added an accent of black behind this panel then layered some music washi tape behind that.

Pretty simple, yet splashy, don't you think?  It came together so quickly, too, and I think it would look beautiful in any color.  If you like measurements to guide you, here's what I used to draw up the sketch...

Mojo Monday 496 Sketch

Card Base: 4.25 x 5.5"

Layer 1: 4" x 5.25"

Layer 2: 2 strips of 0.5"x 5" or washi tape

Layer 3: 1.75" x 4.25"

Layer 4: 3.25" x 4"

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I'll be back tomorrow with Verve's New Release Blog Hop, so be sure to stop back by.  See ya then!

Enabler's List

Stamps: Butterfly Grace (Verve Stamps)

Paper: watercolor paper, black, vellum

Ink: worn lipstick distress ink (Ranger), peony color burst (Ken Oliver), Versamark (Tsukineko)

Accessories: Graceful Butterflies Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), white detail embossing powder (Judikins), washi tape