Maeve Binchy, painting, and this week's cards

The sad news of the week was that the fantabulous Maeve Binchy, who was one of the reasons I became a writer, passed on.  One of the highlights of my career was having A Woman's Heart, the first in my Irish trilogy, in a display with one of her novels in the duty free shop at the Shannon, Ireland, airport several years ago.  I read in USA Today that she'd recently turned in what will be her final (weep) book, and you can bet I'll pre-ordering it. On Lavender Lane appeared on the NYT bestseller list with Minding Frankie, her previous novel, in January, and the idea of appearing on the same page in the New York Times with such a beloved literary giant was truly mindboggling.  She will be dearly missed.

 I've spent most of the past week climbing up and down ladders, painting our breakfast nook Benjamin Moore's Lip Gloss coral, which is as yummy as it sounds.  I've moved on to the foyer and great room, which are in Wythe Blue, a midtone sea blue/green that was Benjamin Moore's 2012 color of the year and after getting it up on two walls, I can see why. It's beyond gorgeous and when I'm done, I'll share photos. Painting, I've found, is great for story plotting, since doing tedious work for hours on end allows my mind to wander. 

Now. . . on to the cards!

This first card was for Cas-ual Friday's challenge to use navy, aqua, and lime on a clean and simple card.  (Which I just realized, oops, closed at noon today.  But here it is anyway.)

I don't know if you can see them, but I embossed dots on the 140# white paper from Mark's Finest Papers with my Cuttlebug.  The navy cardstock is Bazzill Admiralty; the lime is from DCVW.  The image, which I stamped with Memento Nautical Blue and colored with Copics, is from Hero Arts, and I printed the sentiment out on my computer.  This is card #57 in Tartan Magnolia's 100 cards in 100 days challenge. 

Sticking to CAS, this card for the CASology challenge #4, using a bird as an inspiration, took the most trial and error because, although this is one of my go-to stamps, I usually use red and white polka dot paper as a base.  At first I tried embossing the front with hearts, which were large enough to totally overwhelm poor Woodstock.  Then I tried my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, which is my fave folder, but they, too, seemed to take the focus from him.  As did putting a red border all the way around the edge.

So, here's the final card and although I'm not one to use embellishments overly much, I'll have to admit that my fingers were just itching to fill up some of that white space  toward the top with some red Candi paper brads.  Which I resisted. Barely. 

The image, which I colored with Copics, is from Stampabilities and the sentiment, inked in Ancient Page Cardinal, is from Magenta. The border was cut from Mark's Finest Paper's yummy Cherry Slush.  Card 100.58

Next I moved on to using pretty papers, which I'll freely admit being totally addicted to. This first card was for Operation Write Home's Stars and Stamps sketch challenge #131, which you can see here.  Since Sandy told us they were short on Missing You cards, I decided to go with that theme. 

I used black DCWV cardstock and the paper's from the always wonderful BoBunny.  The sentiment, which I stamped with Versafine Vintage Sepia, is from Hero Arts OWH collection.  Since mistakes are always embellishment opportunities, when I accidentally stamped the sentiment too high, I used a bit of the striped paper to underline it.  ;)  Card 100.59


Also, for OWH, the Midweek Throwdown challenge was for an Any Hero card. These aren't the usual blank inside cards for troops to send back home, but a note written directly to a soldier, sailor, Marine, airman, or member of the Coast Guard.  Oozak's challenge this month is a fall colored card, and since so many people's favorite season is fall, and most of our heroes are deployed in places where they won't get to experience it in person, I combined the two challenges in this card:

I triple matted with Stampin' Up's Early Espresso and a pumpkin colored DCWV cardstock; the paper is BoBunny; the image, which I stamped on DCWV linen cardstock with Stampin' Up's Early Espresso is from Inkadinkado; and the sentiment, also stamped with Early Espresso, is another from Hero Arts OWH collection.  Card 100.60 


And finally, this card is for SpeedyTV's Sketch with a Twist challenge #5, which I (YAY!) won last week, as you can see from my snazzy new badge in the left-hand column. 

Although I used Mark's Finest papers for several of my cards this week, this particular cardstock and sparkly paper are from DCWV and the stamp, which I colored with Copics, is from Stampendous.  I also found a little raised pink embellishment which I used for the button and the pink and white twine is from stash.  I was so excited to find this stamp with lots of different texting words because I tend to make more cards for kids than adults, and tween/teen cards are always more challenging. This is especially fun because a quick change in color and paper, and it becomes a card for a boy. For those who don't read  "text" it says Happy Birthday To You! Card 100.61


Thanks for taking the time to visit! I love and appreciate receiving comments! 
Smooches,


JoAnn