2-2-2!

Do you know that my favorite number is 2. It is my birth date and I have just always loved that number. When I logged on to do a new post for today, I saw that I had 222 posts as of August 2nd. Pretty amazing, isn’t it!?? So I am now looking forward to hitting post 2,222...have some work cut out for me!

I am going to catch you up on some hybrid card inspirations using some of my digi desgins sold on MyGrafico.com. One of my favorite illustrative sets is the Hip & Happy set. I use this cross all the time. Most crosses have a rigid, stiffness to them, which reminds me nothing of the Jesus I know and love —
a compassionate and loving God that gave his own life for me. He surrounds me with his love and guidance so I tried to achieve that in my artistic interpretation of the cross. On this first example, I used it to create a sympathy card for our friends who just lost their father/grandfather just a few days after my aunt passed away. I typeset the verse and printed out the cross in b&w. I added a touch of soft pink on the swirls and heart as a soft accent. For the background, I used a flower and design element in black to create the hand stamped background. It is from one of my favorite new stamp sets called Que Sera Sera by K&Company. It is an eclectic mix of designs and verses. I used the same stamp to handcut a lavender floral accent that I raised up with a rhinestone accent.

Working with the same color combination of pink and black I also created this hybrid card for my cousin’s daughter’s Baptism. I just love digital brushes & Photoshop. I used my Mod Twist Garden brushes to create the background, which nicely complimented the lines in the cross illustration. This card was 90% digi, cut out and mounted onto card stock layers. Pretty easy. See below for another modified version of this same card art. That is the cool thing with using digital stamps, art and brushes, you can set up the art, print & experiment with lots of variations of the same design so no cards have to be the same!

I called this version Hip & Girly Baptism Card. The gold, pink and black made it just a bit fancier, yet it still has that girly style to it. You can also dress up hybrid cards by adding brads, ribbons, diecut borders, etc. For this, I kept it simple and classic.

A Butterfly Gathering

I am not quite sure what it is about butterflies that make us smile and lift our spirits. After my uncle passed away in 2000 he has decided to let his presence be felt through random (or as I believe, not so random) butterfly visits. The first occurred during our first beach visit to Wildwood, NJ where our family vacationed every summer with my aunt, uncle and our cousins. We all still were feeling the sadness and loss of this vibrant personality and kidder. We were talking in our group of women as our kids and husbands relaxed or played with the kids on the beach. We all said how "muzzy" (his knickname) was definitely missed. As his daughter-in-law was video taping the kids, they laughed at how this butterfly mistook my brightly flowered bathing suit for the real deal and landed on my butt. Was this a coincidence or just like him to show up on que? Well, my uncle in the day was quite the practical joker and this butterfly shared the same spirit landing from butt to butt. We laughed and joked that Muzzy was with us afterall...just like him to not want to miss out on the trip. Even stranger, and if you have ever been to the Jersey Shore you can appreciate this. The butterfly left our chat fest and went up to our umbrella, circled around then flew off. Mind you, there were probably over 200 umbrellas to choose from and ours was navy, white and quite sun bleached...definitely not the brightest of the bunch!

Over the months and years I would get visits from Monarch butterflies in my garden. I would silently talk to my uncle and tell him how much he was missed. Sometimes he would visit my front garden or fly by me on my walks and bring along a buddy, which I believe was my grandpop Joe, who died just two months before my uncle. He even showed his approval for the home we picked here in Florida by mysteriously appearing inside the covered lanai as Dan, the girls and I contemplated our choices. It just happened to also be near his birthday.

The most remarkable encounter was one year on Father's Day. A monarch was trapped inside our screened enclosure and was sitting awkwardly on the tile surround of our pool. I got a stick and tried to transfer it outside the enclosure. My daughter Ashley was helping me with the door. She watched in disbelief as the buttterfly flew like a parrot and landed on my shoulder, where it sat for a long time as I walked into the back yard. We took pictures of it and it lingered for the longest time. I went to move it and it sat gently on my hand until I placed it on top of a plant in our garden. You see, my uncle was even more special in my life, he was also my godfather so it made total sense that this Father’s Day would be one of our last encounters.

As my aunt, his widow, battles the horrible side effect of chemo and a seemingly losing battle with cancer, I wonder if there will be a new butterfly gathering and if it will be their special way of letting me know, “hey, you are not forgotten either!”

The horizontal folded card sample above was created with my Hip and Happy set using Glue Arts adhesives. I printed out the graphics, hand colored and layered the flowers and brads to create this hybrid sample. It is a get well card that I will be sending to my aunt today to let her know how much she is loved. She knows the specialness of butterflies as I have shared the stories of Uncle Muz’ “visits” with her. Soon it may be her time to join the butterfly dance.

Things Aren’t Always Black & White

...Or Are They?

Just as in life, there are always some grey areas, and this card uses a clean and classic design playing on high contrast b&w colors with a grey pinstripe patterned paper from Doodlebug Designs as a neutral background. The punch and verse are both from Stampin Up!®.

The graphic is a digi stamp design from my Hip & Happy set, available for purchase on www.mygrafico.com.

Also using digi art from the Hip & Happy set, this next birthday card introduces aqua as an accent color to make the designs pop. I used the swirled element in this set colorized in white to create the black & white border strip. That is the exciting thing about working with the editable eps files in Illustrator...you can colorize them to what you want them to be or simply print in b&w or shades of grey added, as shown here for equally fun results.

A close up view of the border and digi art.

Border and Celebrate You verse from Stampin’ Up!®

2 Day Easter Sale at MyGraficO

If you want to save on clip art, digi stamps, brushes, and scrapbook elements, just hop on over to www.MyGraficO.com to save 25% on all products in the shop. Check out my 5 newly added sets: Hip & Happy, Easter Tweets Brushes, Easter Tweets Digi Stamps, Something Springy Brushes and Something Springy Digi Stamps...all included in this sale!!! The sale starts early Friday, April 2nd and ends Sat., April 3rd at midnight. Check out all the great sets available, and have a very Happy Easter!