Four Cards! (I'm back!!)

After a week of zero energy, zero creativity, and a whole lot of medicine, warm salt-water gargling, kleenex and sleep - I checked out this morning's Splitcoast Clean & Simple Challenge and ended up making FOUR cards!  I started one and was thinking of the next one before the first was even done.  It felt sooooo good!

The challenge this morning was a sketch based on this card.   My church still needs sympathy cards so that needed to be my focus this morning.

As I was searching my butterfly stash, I realized that I had this amazing big die from Quickutz and that I could use it in place of the circle element in the sketch!

Even though my focus today is sympathy cards, I found myself wondering what this butterfly would look like in bright, vivid colors.  I had just picked up a K&Co pad of paper with brilliant florals.



Then I moved back to sympathy to put together an even simpler card.  This one ignores the large circle element but keeps an embellishment in that area.

OK - now I need to step back and find the bottom of my craft desk - the supplies for each card just kept piling on top of the last card!

It is spring break here so part of the my quantity of cards is that I didn't have to get anybody up and moving this morning.  My teenager will likely sleep until noon.  My youngest and my husband road-tripped to Sydney, Nebraska.  Why?  Sydney is the home of Cabela's - a mecca for outdoorsmen.  85,000 square feet of guy stuff. 

I am wondering if we don't get my youngest out enough as he kept calling me yesterday with more and more "exciting" sites.  You have to realize that there is absolutely NOTHING between here and Sydney - not even a bump in the road.  The first call was about a missile silo (which is basically a fenced area as the silo itself is underground), then a train with 48 cars, then a train with 100 cars!!  As they entered Sydney (population 6,000), he called to recite all of the restaurants that they were passing.  Then he called about how beautiful the pool in the hotel was - it's a Days Inn... it has a nice, functional square pool - no slide, no nothing. 

Clearly, I don't need to keep spending money on cruises in Alaska, and beach houses in North Caroline and Walt Disney World - I just have to drive my child through the prairies of eastern Colorado and Nebraska!!

But...it's quiet here (at least until he calls again)...and I have the day to play at my craft table!

Blush Blossom Butterflies:

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Thanks for caring
• Ink: Stampin' Up Early Espresso
• Paper: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, Blush Blossom, DCWV Mariposa dsp
• Accessories: Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Nesties labels and circles, American Crafts ribbon

Blue Bayou Butterfly:

• Stamps: Gina K Framed Greetings
• Ink: Stampin' Up Blue Bayou (on edges), Not Quite Navy (sentiment)
• Paper: Stampin' Up Wild Wasabi, Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy, Very Vanilla, Porcelain Prints dsp
• Accessories: Quickutz butterfly die, Cuttlebug dot folder

Floral Butterfly:

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Bird Watching
• Ink: Papertrey Dark Chocolate
• Paper: Papertrey Dark Chocolate, Stampin' Up Purely Pomegrante (retired), K&Co Tim Coffey Cottage Garden dsp
• Accessories: Quickutz butterfly die, Stampin' Up Oval and Scalloped Oval punches

Gray and Jewel Sympathy:

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Three Little Words
• Ink: black
• Paper: Stampin' Up Basic Gray, Papertrey Scarlet Jewel, Very Vanilla
• Accessories: Papertrey Scarlet Jewel ribbon, brad from Hobby Lobby, Tim Holtz embossing folder