LIM15 - One Layer - Embossing

This blog post is two fold. I've got my card finished for the LIM challenge and I have another card that fits both the Less is More challenge and the One Layer Wednesday challenge

With blogger being down last week, I didn't get to finish my comments to all the wonderful entries for the LIM challenge - which was White on White. Hopefully, this week will be a much better week and I can make it around to all the beautiful cards and leave a little luv!  I did leave a lot of comments, but I think blogger wiped them all out.  AND....I hope to get to all the OLW girls and leave a little luv too!

Our challenge from Chrissie and Mandi this week at Less is More, is to create a one layer card with embossing - either dry embossing or heat embossing.  Well, I chose dry embossing - mostly because I always mess up everything I try to heat emboss.  With practice, I'm sure I'll get it eventually, but this week, I decided to try a different technique for me.   I embossed my card front with the exception of a large oval in the center.  I believe there are some tutorials online telling how to do this, so I won't go into it right now.

I used a Cuttlebug folder to emboss the outer edges of my card front, then used the oval nestability in the center to emboss the circle.  The image is a stamp from Flourishes Orchid Collection which came out in April.  The sentiment was part of a sentiment from Hero Arts that said Just For You, and I only inked up for for you - mostly because all of it wouldn't fit in my oval. LOL!  I colored the image with Copics. Not too sure I got the color just right, but it'll do.

This next card is also for the OLW challenge which is hosted this week by Jennifer Styles.  Jennifer challenged us to make a one layer card for a new home.  This card also works for this week's challenge at Less is More - to use embossing on a one layer card.

I used a top fold card so that I could hinge my card on the roof of the "house".  I cut the roof shape, and then cut some off the sided for the "house".  I stamped the window image from Flourishes Windows to the World collection.  I highlighted with a little Copics B0000 and C1 markers.  The roof was embossed with a folder from Stampin Up that I just got the other day. I couldn't figure out any way to emboss just the front of the roof, so I ended up embossing both the front and the back!  I also scored lines down the front of the card to make it look like boards and added a little highlighting to the boards too.  The Home Sweet Home sentiment is from a Maya Road stamp set.  The tulips in the window box were colored with Copics. Then I tried to heat emboss the tulips and made a total mess, but I did try to salvage them by drawing my outlines back with a black pen.  The heat embossing covered all my stamped lines.  I probably should have heat embossed the entire image with clear embossing powder, THEN tried to emboss/color the tulips. Oh well, lesson learned.

Since I was already posting, I decided to share my newest layout.  This is a photo of my first Mother in Law taken sometime around 1945.  I used the Gabrielle Collection from Bo Bunny for this layout.  I did a little faux stitching, by piercing the edges of the paper and connecting the holes with a black pen.  The flowers were punched with 3 different sized flowers punches and layered.  I added some glitter glam to the flowers, and the center are done with Perfect Pearls.  The large butterfly was cut from the patterned paper.  Title letters  "her" were cut with a Quikutz font.  The large diamonds were cut with a Lifestyles die, and the large scallops across the bottom were also cut with a Lifestyles die.  I threaded ribbon through the holes the die made, then added bows at the top of each scallop. The branch the flowers are on is a QK die.  The butterfly trail is Prima bling.

Journaling is tucked behind the peachy mat at the top (the scalloped piece).  I wanted to share some of my thoughts about my first husband's mother with my children (their granny).  Journaling reads:

This is a photo of your Granny Bellew made sometime around 1945.  This year (2011), Granny will be celebrating her 86^th birthday.  I met Granny Bellew just a few months before your Daddy and I got married in 1970.  Granny made me feel like part of the family from the very beginning.  She was always nice to me and tried to do things for me when they came to visit.  Back then, I would get upset when I came home from work and found that she had finished the laundry and cooked supper, because I thought she was trying to tell me that I didn’t know how to be a good wife.  Now that I’m older (and much wiser), I realize that she was only trying to help me out because she thought I had so much to do and she was trying to lighten my load.  How foolish I was at 20.  Your Granny Bellew is a wonderful woman and I am so thankful for her love and support.  She’s a strong and courageous woman…a woman who has now buried two of her children and her husband…and still she has a strong faith.  She is a woman to be greatly admired.  I’m just sorry for the years that I was an ungrateful daughter in law and I wish I’d realized what a wonderful person she is much sooner than I did.

Long post...if you made it all the way...you deserve an award! Thanks so much for stopping by! I love your comments! Until next time...

Hugs!