Reminscing.

So, I made my very first Easter cards yesterday. As I was making them, thinking about the fact that I’ve never made an Easter card in my life and that I don’t know to whom I’d send these, I was thinking about my Grammy. She was one of those women who tried to make all occasions special. All holidays deserved a good meal and a little treat, birthdays required special celebrations, and accomplishments were always to be recognized and some small remembrance of the occasion received. My Grammy is the only person from whom I have ever received an Easter or Halloween card, because she felt that even on those occasions, her grandchildren deserved to be reminded that she was thinking about them. She also used to go to the Hallmark store, buy the fancy Russell Stover jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, and other such extravagant and delicious goodies and make up a paper plate for each person at her Easter table, complete with coordinating Easter grass and colored cellophane to protect such precious delights. How I miss my Grammy and the ridiculously wonderful details she put into showing her family that she loved them.

Anyway, that soliloquy was my segue into my post for today… My first ever Easter cards. I bought these darling stamps and dies from Lil Inker last spring with the intention of making and sending my Grammy an Easter card, but she passed away before I could do so, so they lay untouched in my stash until I was deciding on stamps to use for this round of The Daily Marker 30 Day challenge. My “theme” (if you could call it that) was to color stamps that I’d never used before.

I started with one of the lovely little floral eggs from Egg & Flower. I stamped it on one of the coordinating egg die cuts, cut from watercolor paper, then heat embossed it with my new favorite combination: Versafine (which is black) and Ranger Silver Pearl (which is pearly and transparent). The combination creates a pretty pewter color that is a little softer than just stark black ink with clear embossing powder. So pretty! I watercolored the flowers using my Zig markers in pretty, spring-y shades of yellow and lavender. Once I had finished watercoloring, I added a pretty royal purple “Happy Easter” die cut from the same die set.

I die cut the Scalloped cover plate from PTI using some pretty lavender colored card stock, and placed my cute watercolored egg on it… then swiftly decided that I needed a little something more, because the egg alone was just far too plain. So I stamped and heat embossed (using the same method as the embossing on the egg) the floral swag from Corner Adorner and colored a few of the blooms in it. I’m nitpicky enough that if I have outlined, watercolored images in one area of the project, I don’t want to change gears and have simple stamped images. Yes, I’m persnickety. Yes, it’s a sickness. Don’t judge, please. 🙂 The thing I love about the blooms from these two sets is that they match. Be still, my match-y match-y heart.

I fussy cut several of the blooms and added them behind the egg, then popped everything up with foam tape. As an afterthought, I colored and fussy cut a few more images from the Corner Adorner set and tucked them beneath and in bare areas of the corner using just regular adhesive to provide some depth and extra dimension. Just fills things out nicely. The pretty, spring-y corner was finished off with some lovely sequins from my ridiculous stash of sequins.

While I was coming up with the initial design for the first project, I thought I would include two bunnies from the super adorable Bunnies and Bows die set. Don’t these remind you so much of those yummy Russell Stover chocolate bunnies?? I already had these little guys die cut from pale gray card stock and adorned with purple bows, so I thought I would create another quick card. I die cut another pretty background die from Papertrey Ink… the Scroll Cover Plate… using the same lavender card stock. I die cut another royal purple “Happy Easter” and adhered it to the corner, adding my bunnies to the opposite corner. The background looked a little bare, so I added a swag of blooms from Corner Adorner in medium gray ink.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope I didn’t bore you too much at the beginning with my reminiscing about my Grammy and our little Easter details. Little things like connecting my Easter cards with memories of my family always bring a smile to my face! I hope you enjoyed my first-ever foray into Easter cardmaking haha! Have a marvelous day!