Easter Blessings - Joy On Earth

Hello, my precious blogging friends. Before I get to the Easter card I'm sharing today, I would like to share a few photos of my little art corner in our home living area. It's all decked out for Spring and Easter.

I have little colored twinkle lights on all the time. I change them and the fabric skirt out seasonally, when I change the art out.

 I tried taking the photos with all the room lights on but none of them looked as good as these.

I also have a third 8x8 Deco on the front foyer table, and a few art pieces here and there on our living room shelving, but I try to fill this spot first. It provides something for our house guests to check out and gives me a place to put what I make! I do love it, but it's no fun to dust. Just Sayin'. ;-)

So, onto my card.

   

I used the current Outlawz Wednesday sketch, resizing it to an A2 size in my PSE program. The inspiration for the papers and image I used came from The Card Concept's current Easter Blessing's photo inspiration challenge. The challenge is to take inspiration for your card from the photo, and to create in one of their defined styles. I created my card in their Clean and Layered style, and perhaps with a bit of Classy and Elegant, too.

    

I used SEI's Couture 6x6 paper collection. My use of the two-tone white base mat paper along with the white oval that my image is printed on salutes the shabby chic white shades in the photo. Although my flowers are a different color, the photo's flowers inspired me. Same for the cross, and I chose my dark midnight blue accent card stock from the photo's dark blues.

This Power Poppy digital stamp Joyful Lilies is one of my favorites. I was so happy to find and have a ProMarker midnight blue shade that seems to match the SU card stock perfectly, so I used it on the cross.

I added some colored pencil here and there to accent and then brushed some Wink of Stella yellow over the flowers' leaves to give them a bit of sparkle to complement the little yellow gold rhinestones in the centers of the punched butterflies. I like how the yellow-green in the patterned paper looks next to the flowers and greenery.

I have Spellbinders oval dies in both plain straight edge and scalloped, so I combined two here to frame my image. I used my scalloped deco scissors to create the layered corners. For the sentiment, I used some words from Tim's Seasonal chit chat stickers. This card is for my mother-in-law and I always try to make her a very nice well-made religious card as she is a devout Catholic.

 For the inside, I included a favorite poem stamp of mine that I bought long ago from Clear Dollar Stamps. It says:

So sweet a rose

Could ever be found,

As Christ the Lord,

Whose love abounds.

On Calvary's cross

He chose to hang,

To save our souls

From death and pain.

It's such a simple, homespun, back-country way of what today's celebration is all about. I've also heard it sung so it may be from a hymn, but I originally learned of it as a poem. The Easter Blessings stamp is by I Brake For Stamps.

For the back, I used more of the green pattern paper that I used on the front, with leftover scraps and my Technique Tuesday and Sweet Stamp Shop combined siggies stamped on a punch circle of white scrap.

I'm grateful you stopped by and I hope you have some feel-good plans for today, whatever can make you happy in our current situation. I suspect there will be many phone and internet conversations checking in with loved ones, and that's a wonderful way to spend Easter Sunday right there, isn't it? Enjoy! XXO

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:
1.   Outlawz Wednesday Sketch 4/1-4/14 -- sketch is shown above
2.   The Card Concept Challenge #132: Easter Blessings Inspiration Photo --  I have explained what inspired me and named my style up above in the paragraphs under the sketch I used.

3.   Power Poppy Creative Confetti April Challenge:Let's Go Digital -- my focal image is a Power Poppy's Joyful Lilies digital stamp  

4.   The Flower Challenge #43: Spring or Autumn -- SPRING  

5.   Classic Design Challenge #4: AG  -- AND HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY!
6.   Colour Crazy Week 14: AG with Colouring -- I colored the focal image with ProMarkers.
7.   Crafty Calendar April Challenge: Add a Butterfly