Asian Artistry – Dragonflies for a cause

Hi Everyone.

Happy Sunday Night.  We started the day off really early,  6.30am, in order to get Lou to the airport.  I then spent some time unmounting stamps and making a few cards.  Then generally tidying up my stamping space……  because now I have more space! 🙂

I'd also like to start off today's post by wishing SAMI a VERY, VERY Happy Birthday.  I know you will have had a very special day and that it was filled with laughter and love… oh… yeah… and lots of presents befitting a young lady on such a SPECIAL birthday :-)  Tell your Mom to give you a hug from me!

Tonight's card features my ever faithful stamp set Asian Artistry… one of the sets I will never get rid off.  Which is funny considering I didn't think I even wanted it!  I used a sketch from tayloredexpressions – tesc102 as my inspiration.  I changed it up just a little, so I hope Taylor – and ya'll will forgive me!  I haven't done a tayloredexpressions challenge before, but was really… and I mean really…. drawn to do this – not just because of the sketch, but because of the reason why Taylor is looking for dragonfly cards.

Taylor is looking for dragonfly cards to be donated to support families at a local hospital who have lost a newborn.  I know that there are many of us, me included, who have suffered that loss, either through miscarriage, or loss just after birth.  Even if we haven't suffered that loss, many of us know those that have – and how devastating that is.  Consequently, I decided to make some cards using dragonflies to support Taylor's card drive.  Mom.. this one is for you… My mother lost 5 children in the weeks following their birth and this is for my son, who never made it to full term. 

I hope you will be inspired to donate dragonfly cards if you can, or to find a local hospital that does something similar.

Some things are serendipitous…. last weekend I read the information on the drive and said to Lou that I wished I had a dragonfly stamp that was bigger than the one in Asian Artistry.  Blow me down with a feather (that's an English expression for I was stunned :-))… when the ONLY card I pulled out of Brenda's almost 300 cards for the charity drive happened to be a dragonfly card!  I was gobsmacked – another English expression for speechless :-).  I mean… really, what are the chances of that?  Anyway, I discovered that it was a set called A Measure of a Life – from the 2005/2006 catty and managed to find one on sale on a popular auction site.  Several cards were made using this set yesterday, and you will be seeing some of those this week.

In the meantime, here's the first card I made, using Taylor's sketch as inspiration, and is the first one that will be included in the dragonfly card drive.

Firstly….. here's a look at the dragonfly.  I stamped it using Mellow Moss and Melon Mambo inks onto Vellum.  Once the inks were dry, I took my Frost White shimmer paint and painted all over the dragonfly.

Here's the closeup for you.  I hope you can see it better than on my screen… for some reason my Mac is washing things out…. I'll have to go check my other laptop later and see if I need to change the color. Because I stamped on vellum, the dragonfly looks very ethereal and as light as air.  BTW… love that background paper…. it's from the Lovely Flower Bundle AGAIN…. that's three nights in a row I've used it!

Here's the finished card

I was very pleased with the final result, it has the light, airy feel that I was looking for and I hope it provides a little comfort to some parents.  Mind you, it's the sort of card that could be used for anything.. .thinking of you is such a universal phrase and so is the color scheme and layout.

It's the first time I have mixed Melon Mambo and Mellow Moss together – and I really like it. 

Here's the card recipe:

• card stock:  Mellow Moss (102898) and Whisper White (100730)
• DSP: Lovely Flowers Bundle (Hostess set – 116916)
• Ribbon: Mellow Moss Satin Ribbon (109033
• Stamp Set: Asian Artistry(hostess level 2 set (114399), Teeny Tiny Wishes (115370)
• Punch: Scallop Border punch (118402) – a SAB freebie choice!
• Two sizes of half pearls (smaller ones on the scallop border, and one size larger on the side of the card

I inked the stamp in Mellow Moss and Melon Mambo.  I huffed and puffed to make it wet and stamped it onto the Whisper White. 

I then inked the dragonfly in the same colors and stamped it onto Vellum.  Tip:  It takes a little while to dry, so I took out my heat gun and gently dried it.  Don't go too near the vellum and don't keep it on for too long:-)

I adhered the DSP (it has little dots that echo the pearls… love that!!!) to the Mellow Moss using snail.

I punched the border, mounted the half pearls, stamped the sentiment "thinking of you" from the Teeny Tiny Wishes set… where would I be without this set? :-).. using Mellow Moss and then adhered it to the Mellow Moss border with stampin dimensionals.

All that was left to do was to cut around the dragonfly and adhere it to the card.  I did that with a single mini glue dot which I placed under the thorax, so that it would appear to float, just as dragonflies seem to do!

Adelle asked me how I was doing with my unmounts… Oh yeah….. LOVING THEM… I'm following the process I outlined in my post here.  Only difference, is that I have learned to use less glue… and…. and this is really great… one of my fellow SU! demonstrators created a template using Word so that all I had to do was change the spine title and cut and paste the image for the stamp set from SU's site!  Voila… perfect.  Tomorrow night I will post the link for you.  It was so genius – and generous – I'd like to ensure that I give credit to her.

Before I sign off for tonight, here's a sneak peek at tomorrow's card…..

 I hope you all have a fabulous Monday.. I don't think I will get into my stamping space tomorrow, but hope you all get to do something fun!

Hugs

Jaydee