A Touch of Grace

Happy Easter and Passover!  I wish you a blessed celebration with family and friends.  We’re headed to my parents’ home to spend the day with them.

Today I’d like to share an Easter triptych card that I’ve been working on this week which happened to fit in with the ssnotime #84- Hang It Up challenge.  If you’d like to participate in this fun challenge, head over to Sharon Johnson’s blog to read all the details.  The card consists of three panels connected with aged copper hinges.  The center panel is 7″ high, 6 1/4″ wide, the two side panels are 7″ high, 4″ wide.  I hand embossed the three white panel fronts and used a craft knife for the cut out work.  I adhered the panels to True Faith Vellum that I purchased from Our Daily Bread. The panels are adhered with dimensionals onto white card stock.

For your convenience, shopping links are provided at the bottom of this post.

This photograph of the center panel shows you the beautiful luminosity of the vellum when placed on  dimensionals.

Okay, I’ll admit I’m a braggart . . . LOL!  I included a close up picture of the bow to show you how gorgeous it is!  Look at the center knot, isn’t it fabulous!  It’s the most perfect bow I’ve ever tied.  I’d like to say I did it all on my own, but I can’t!  Nope, I had help.  I was bemoaning my lack of skill with tying bows to my friend, Sharon, and she referred me to Jenny Gropp’s blog, One Krafty Kat, and this beautiful card Jenny designed.  If you haven’t visited Jenny’s blog, you’ll want to hop over, you’ll be in for a fabulous treat!  Jenny’s one phenomenal designer!  I immediately wrote to Jenny and she shared her secret.

The bow is made with beautiful taffeta ribbon that I asked Sharon to special order for me.  I’m greedy, I actually ordered several rolls of the luscious May Arts taffeta ribbons, they’re absolutely fabulous!  You’ll be seeing a lot of them in my future posts.  I also had Sharon order 1/8″ white silk ribbon.  The 1/8″ ribbon is very easy to work with, so soft and dainty.  I attached SU’s “Pretties” pearls and gold beads that I purchased at JoAnn’s to the ends of the ribbon.  I love working with the gold cord, it’s so pretty to see it through the teardrop.

In this close up, you can better see the embossing on the scrolls, as well as the Kaiser Pearls that I liberally used on all the flourished panels.  I used Nestibilities’ Labels Four as a base for the crosses on the side panels that I just got in from Joan’s Gardens.  Joan will also do special orders, scroll down to the shopping links below to see what I’ve had Joan special order for me.

• Paper:  Prism, Whisper White, True Faith, Water Color - 140 lbs. cold pressed
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Light Box, Embossing Stencil, Stylus, Craft Knife, May Arts Ribbons and Cord, SU Pretties, Gold Beads, Tombow Markers, Water Color Brush, Gold EP, Heating Tool, Self-Healing Mat, Prima Flower, Dimensionals, Karen Foster Aged Copper Hinges, Kaiser Pearls, Cross Punch, Nestibilities Labels Four, Gold Krylon Pen, Tim Holtz Ruler

Thank you for stopping by my blog to visit.

Hi everyone!  Easter is fast approaching and to celebrate I made this card for Sharon Johnson’s Stamp Simply#81 Edible Egg challenge.  The Easter egg is stamped and water colored.  I stamped the flowers and leaves from the same stamp, cut them out and adhered them to the two side panels.  The background paper was dry embossed using an Anna Griffin corner embossing template.  Peach Kaiser Pearls I purchased at Joan’s Gardens were placed on all three panels.  The side panels were dry embossed with an embossing stencil I purchased from Stampfest last June, a craft knife was used to do the cut out work.  After cutting the side panels, I drew a template about 1/8″ larger than the cut out pieces for the darker peach colored paper and then traced the lines onto the peach paper and cut that with scissors in the larger areas and a craft knife in the tighter areas.  I stamped a large cross from Our Daily Bread’s Cross of Christ stamp set as well as the two smaller crosses, verse and sentiment.  The large cross was stamped on vellum card stock, cut out with a craft knife, placed on small pop dots and adhered on top of the painted Easter Egg.  To keep the pop dots from showing, I placed them under the gold embossing.

I used shimmery peach silk ribbon to make the two small bows on the side panels.  The larger bow is Taffeta, a beautiful medium-to-dark olive green in color.  Due to my poor photography skills, it appears a dark gray in this photo.   I purchased the ribbons from the Stamp Simply Ribbon Store that Sharon Johnson has on her blog.  I e-mailed Sharon and described ribbons I was looking for.  She found exactly what I was looking for and got back with me very quickly.  I made my ribbons choices, they were ordered and I received everything within a few days.

Please see the bottom of my post for shopping links.

This close up of the left side panel shows how large this design is as well as a better view of the detailed embossing and cut out work.   I used a lighter peach directly underneath the cut portions and a darker peach for the background.

This profile image shows the dimension of the design.  The connection between the panels is 3/4″ in depth.  The egg was placed on pop dots for added dimension.

A close of the Easter egg for those who may wish to paint it.  The egg was painted with Pearl Ex and Gum Arabic.  The picture is pretty dark and the colors of the water coloring are very distorted, but the photo gives you an accurate view of what the Pearl Ex and Gum Arabic look like in real life.

While this picture is accurate as far as the true colors are concerned, the effect of the Pearl Ex and Gum Arabic is lost in the shot.

• Paper:  Prism, Water Color
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Craft knife, Paper Snips (SU), self-healing cutting mat, heating tool, water color brush, Tombow markers, Ranger EP, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Dazzling Diamonds, pop dots, Zip Dry adhesive, May Arts silk and taffeta ribbons, Kaiser Pearls, embossing stencils, Stamp A Ma Jig, Scor It, Tonic Paper Cutter, Pearl Ex and Gamsol, light box, gold cord, Swarovski Crystals, SU Pretties Kit for pearls and crystal tear drop beads

Shopping:

A Touch of Grace:  Stencil

Our Daily Bread:  Cross of Christ

Stamp Simply Ribbon Store:  May Arts ribbons

Joan’s Gardens:  Ranger EP, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, pop dots, Zip Dry adheseive, Kaiser Pearls, Scor It, Tonic Paper Cutter, light box

Thank you for stopping by to visit, I wish you a wonderful weekend with your family.

Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by. 

I’d like to share with you a prayer that aided me in the selection of the name for my blog.

Lord, Your grace is a gift that cannot be earned.  It is a gift that was given freely when I accepted Your Son as my personal Savior.  Freely have I received Your gifts.  Father, Let me freely share my gifts, my time, my energy, and my faith.  And let my words, my thoughts, my prayers, and my deeds bring honor to You and to Your Son, now and forever.  Amen.

I don’t know about you, but that pretty much sums it up for me, I need His grace in my life daily!  Hence the name, “A Touch of Grace.”

During my time on the Dirty Dozen design team I watercolored several projects.  Watercoloring takes a long time, there are several techniques involved.  Each morning when I would go into my stamping room, which I call my “stampin’ studio,” I’d say a small prayer before I began.  I always asked Him to be with me as I paint, to let me glorify Him in whatever I do, and also that I would like the painting when it was finished.  LOL!!  Okay, it’s my belief that God has a sense of humor or He wouldn’t have given us one. 

Today I’m posting pictures of butterflies that are watercolored on vellum.  If you’re interested in a tutorial for these, please let me know in the comment section and I’ll get to work on that. 

This is a vellum napkin ring holder that I watercolored for the place settings on my table at Easter.  It’s hard to see the beautiful Dazzling Diamonds and small glass pearls on the body of the butterfly in this picture.  It was a total hit with family and friends.

This is a vellum place card that I watercolored and placed at each table setting.  I made eight of them in different pastel colors. It’s hard to see the dimension of the Crystal Effects on those tiny pear shapes in this picture.  I used Swarovski crystals in the flower centers.

This is the Easter card I sent out to my family.  It doesn’t appear that large in this picture, but it is VERY large, it measures nearly seven inches across.  These butterflies are stamped, embossed, and watercolored on vellum and then transferred to watercolor paper and carefully adhered.  I used micro glass pearl beads and Swarovski crystals on these.  Look at the beautiful antennae, I cannot tell you what a bear it was to cut those, but well worth all the careful work.  Unfortunately all the beauty and dimension isn’t showing that well in these pictures.  I’ll try to take better photographs and replace them.

Recipe for product used on these butterflies:

• Stamps:  Parked on Rubber
• Paper:  Canson watercolor paper, SU vellum cardstock
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Dazzling Diamonds, Swarovski crytals, micro glass pearl beadss, Crystal Effects, Ranger Gold EP, White EP, Tombow Markers, watercolor brush, heating tool

I wish you all a wonderful weekend with your families!