Recovering and Honors!

 Hello from the land of convalescence!  I am 13 days post op from having my gallbladder removed.  Besides popping and internal stitch on Monday, I'm doing pretty good...not great yet...but not bad.  I was  able to get back into the art studio today and do some 'therapy', and much to my surprise and HONOR, I was picked as a winner of the Altenew March Inspiration Challenge!  I LOVE their florals and will hopefully be able to complete the Educator Program soon.  HERE is the card that won.

The Altenew April Inspiration Challenge was a challenge for me...  The inspiration comes from guest host Joy D'souza and a beautiful photo she took of a red rose.  Now...as a former florist, I LOVE roses!  However...red roses cause me PTSD twitches.  I've spent DAYS making THOUSANDS of vases of red roses for Valentine's day for YEARS.  I would seriously have nightmares of the repetitive nature of the arranging, and fear of miscounting or running out...yes, I'm weird.  

I think that's why this was a difficult project for me!  I think I made 12 different red roses with the same colors and stencils and stamps.  Some with white borders, some on red paper, some fully covered with ink.  I think I made 5 different background papers, just trying to make it 'right'.  I finally put this together.  Its not my favorite creation, but I needed several thank you cards for sweet people that gave me get well wishes and was seeing them tonight.

I have signed up for the Altenew monthly Craft Your Life Kits and received the Garden Rose kit.  I embossed the background panel with the embossing folder in the kit, after inking up the panel with 2 green inks to deepen the embossing.  The rose didn't photograph well, but it is pretty in person. 

After I created the rose and the leaves, I assembled the card and die cut 'thanks' from the Script Words 2 die set out of gold mirror paper.  I finished off the card with a splatter of metallic gold water color and some rhinestones I colored green with a Copic marker.  I will try to make another one since I'm not really thrilled with this one.

That's it!  Have a colorful day!