I just made a batch of these cards for the church card ministry for April. I just have to share a story about the cards this month. First I have to say that my story is probably questionable theology, but since I’m not an expert I’m going to share it anyway. I had some time last weekend, and I decided to get ahead of schedule and start making the cards for April. I didn’t yet have the number of cards needed from the coordinator. But I didn’t want to wait, so I estimated that 30 should be a safe number. If it wasn’t enough, then the card senders would have plenty to get started and I would have a little time to fill the gap. If it was too much, then it would be a little surplus that they could use in a subsequent month. I’ve had the batch of 30 cards ready to go for a few days, but I hadn’t contacted the coordinator because I had a busy work schedule and wouldn’t be able to drop them off until this weekend. And then yesterday she contacted me to let me know the number of April birthdays – drumroll — it’s 30! I think that there was some divine inspiration, or the moving Holy Spirit, that helped me pick just the right number. This is a huge relief (and a bit of a skin tingler) because I’ll be spending a lot more time over the next 2 weeks preparing with the church choir for a Cantata performance on Palm Sunday, special music for Good Friday and (of course) Easter. I’m so glad that I don’t have to fit in some extra card making in a crunch time!
I used several of the Online Exclusive items when I created these cards. I actually used several different patterns of the Hello, Irresistible paper and chose coordinating colors for the paper on the right and the shadow die for the greeting. I don’t have any of the Lost Lagoon or Pretty Peacock cardstock since those colors retired a while ago, but I was delighted to find that Soft Succulent coordinates beautifully with the paper. I really love the 3D embossing folder that is part of the trio that’s an Online Exclusive. Unfortunately, they are currently unavailable but the good news is that Stampin’ Up! is getting more soon. I’m so happy with my Online Exclusive purchases so far, and I’m looking forward to creating more with them.
I used this old sketch challenge as the inspiration for my card design. I knew that I wanted to have a small-ish strip of the patterned paper so I could stretch my supply, and I wanted to use the Sending die because I’m loving word dies lately. This layout popped out to me as “just right” when I was scrolling through past sketches.
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 |  Black Glimmer Paper [139605] $5.00 |  |
