happy & sad cards

Yesterday was a truly lovely day!  Thanks so much to my family and friends (blogging & IRL) for all the love.  It was also a good day because I made a card from scratch, no sketch, no special inspiration, no CASEing - yippee!  This may not be a big deal to many of the creative and extremely productive folks out there, but I'm just a regular crafty gal :)

My one and only aunt is having a birthday, so I wanted something special.  Cards for aunts scream for florals, but I've never actually purchased such a stamp set (I know, weird).  I do have Round & Round, however, and we're originally Kansas girls so it had to be the sunflower - in golden yellow.  Also purple because it's a complementary color, and I'm loving the spring time weather here (don't hate).  The card base is from the Cricut cartridge, A Child's Year,

I also needed a card for the passing of a dear friend's father.  I did a variation on a set of thank yous from a previous post (link here).  For a masculine look I chose the wood impression plate on linen paper and inked the edges & grains with antique linen ink.  I used my fingernail to further distress the edges (looking a lot better than my usual distressing with scissors).  It's never fun to create a sympathy card, but I Iike this calming, soulful look.

xoxo,
Christy

SUPPLIES:

springtime birthday

stamps - PTI Round & Round (Fillable Frames #8 & Birthday Basics on the inside)
paper - PTI harvest gold, plum pudding, Egg Hunt patterened paper
ink - PTI summer sunrise, plum pudding, dark chocolate; antique linen Distress Ink
accents - PTI harvest gold buttons & swiss dots ribbon, new leaf baker's twine; yellow gems
tools- PTI Mat Stack 1 die; EK Success 1 3/4" circle punch, Marvy super jumbo (blue) scalloped circle punch; Cricut cartridge 'A Child's Year'

dove sympathy 
stamps - Fillable Frames #2 (sentiment), Fillable Frames #8 (frame)
paper - PTI blueberry sky, enchanted evening, linen
ink - PTI enchanted evening; antique linen Distress Ink
accents - PTI vintage cream felt
tools- PTI Woodgrain impression plate, Peace Be Still Collection die