The Love of Reading for Freshly Made Sketches

I'm not even sure where I found these stamps and dies, but they are all about reading.  For me, the matching dies are worth the entire purchase! This particular image was perfect for the Freshly Made Sketch. 

Easter Colors

 

Longing for the real Spring season, I chose a Hero Arts image of magnolia blossoms for this Sunday Stamps card. 

A Floral Square and a Meaningful Sentiment

 

First, I made a kraft square card...then realized it really didn't feature the flower for The Flower Challenge.  So it was a start-over.  The poppy image is a new one from Unity.  One stamper used it every day for about a month to make a wonderful variety of cards.  For this one, I water-colored the poppy. I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can do with the image.  For now, it's a 5x5 square card. I actually have invitation envelopes so I can also mail it.

 The sentiment is so meaningful for me...and for 3 of my 4 siblings. Our mother had an extended peony garden; all of us have some of her peony plants in our own gardens and we have extended our floral choices to dahlias, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, poppies, clematis, etc.  In our senior years, we have definitely found our own gardens and know our mother would be proud.  

A Mix of Paper Patterns

 This Sunday Stamps sketch took me places I don't remember going before!  By that, I mean that I mixed patterned paper to achieve the design.  And I was able to use a sentiment that I've never used before...a wood-mounted stamp. 

Purple with Butterfly

I changed the "foliage" into a purple and metallic gold butterfly for this Freshly Made Sketch. Because I have a hug inventory of 6x6 paper pads, it's always a challenge to make choices for cards ... unless the challenge specifies a color. 

Soft Color Throwdown

 

I am really attracted to the colors in the current Color Throwdown palette. They aren't colors I would normally use, but that might change.  I don't recall where the large leaf die came from but the flower is a wood-mount stamp that I just love. It's a Hero Arts stamp called Classic Bloom.  I like to paper piece with it. 

Handling the Pressure with Squares/Circles

 The OPTIONAL TWIST for today's challenge is:

SQUARES and/or CIRCLES

I will never use all of the embossing folders that I own!  Never!  It's a sickness, I guess.  I quit counting at 100.  This folder is one of the older ones.  Using kraft cardstock is something I don't do often, but the folder seemed to need it for this week's Can You Handle the Pressure?