Two cards, two inspirations...

I have two cards to share today: one I made on Friday for a retirement party we attended, and another I created on Saturday for Amy’s Woodblock Wednesday Challenge.

First up is the retirement card. It was made for a woman who had worked with my husband for nearly 30 years. She is heading to Vietnam for a holiday, with a friend,  in a few weeks, so that became the inspiration for the design.

I used Pingwing to find a beach scene, printed it onto an A2 card, and then trimmed it down with a Gina K Master Layout die. I had recently purchased a jandals die, which was perfect for the theme, so I cut the jandals from gold glitter card from Altenew and some black card. To finish, I created the sentiment on my laptop using Word.

My next card came about on Saturday while I was doing a bit of tidying up. As I sorted through some of my woodblock stamps, I realised I was still in time to join Amy’s Woodblock Wednesday Challenge.

For this card, I used a Penny Black stamp called Gossamer. It is such a pretty image, and I came up with the idea to ink blend around the flower, then paint the flower in a lighter tone of the same colour.

I stamped the image and die cut it with a Pinkfresh Studio Folk Edge die. After masking the flower, I added Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass and Broken China, blending the colour all around the image. I then used a light wash of Tumbled Glass as paint, with a little Mowed Lawn for the leaves and flower centres.

The sentiment is from a Penny Black photopolymer set, Je T’aime Paris, and I finished the card with a little die cut butterfly from Monte’s Craft Supplies Layered Butterflies die. 

I'm entering this into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes - optional Things with Wings. 

I was really pleased with how this one came together — it turned out just as I had imagined. Thanks so much for stopping by to see today’s cards.