Nothing a Good Babka Can’t Cure!

I am running a tad behind on sharing some Easter inspiration, but most of you know my grandfather passed away right before Easter and we went to Philly for his funeral. We just returned last night and I had to share some Easter and springtime cards along with our family’s new mantra...“nothing a good babka can't cure!” You see, I come from an all Polish background and we have a love of our polish foods such as kielbasa, babka, pierogis and others that I can't begin to spell correctly, so I won't bother even trying! LOL.

The morning of my grandfather’s funeral, I woke up with the inside of my cheek aching from biting it while chewing gum the day before...I know I am Polish...try not too laugh to loud now! I asked my mom if she had anything I could put on it and she gave me some ambesol. I rubbed it on my finger and dabbed it on my scrapes. Minutes later the left side of my face felt as if I had a shot of novacaine. I went into instant panic wondering if I would have enough feeling on the left side of my face to get through the prayer of the faithful reading at my grandpa's funeral mass or if I would be drooling over the page. Time was flying by so I decided to eat some babka for breakfast and worry about it if I was still numb after we left the house. Fortunately after breakfast the numbness wore off and I was back to normal, so my Irish brother-in-law, Kevin, later joked, “ah, nothing a good babka can’t cure!”, and so that became the mantra for the weekend, and our standing family joke. If only life were that simple! Some of our family members and friends are dealing with the diagnosis or return of cancer and facing treatment so humor has proved to be an important tool for our family in coping with the stress and sadness. But one thing that I truly discovered this weekend is that nothing can take away pain and suffering, but there is nothing like a family coming together during trying times. These bonds can turn tears to laughter, and make the most unbearable endurable even if for a brief moment.

This “Easter Flutters By” card features a background paper from Karen Foster Design, diecut & embossed butterflies using Stampin’ Up!’s new Beautiful Wings Embosslits die and a Sizzix Big Kick along with a verse from their Well Scripted set. The leaf diecut is also created using the Little Leaves die from Stampin’ Up!®.

This is a not-so-typical approach to an Easter card created using an old scrap of patterned Cardstock from Fancy Pants Designs along with some digi stamps from some of my new sets on myGraficO.com...Easter Tweets color digi stamps and Elegant Frames digi stamps. I used non-traditional colors on this and re-colorized and stacked the verse to match the frame. The digi stamps were colorized and scaled using Adobe Illustrator, then printed out on an inkjet printer. I trimmed them and layered the elements on this card along with some accent cardstock and ribbon to create this fast and fun Easter greeting. Tip: I set up a file with numerous digi stamp elements then print out on one sheet to minimize paper waste. Then I create cards to keep on hand for upcoming holidays, birthdays and general greeting cards.

Check back for more stamped and digi card inspirations that I will post this week.