Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!  Yes I know this is coming a day late, but for some reason my blog doesn't like when I schedule posts.  I should know this by now.  The posts either go live late or don't go live at all.  When I try to manually pub them well that is a whole different beast, haha!  Such is life but I've important and beautiful things to share so on we go...

This card is also part of the first ever ScrapFX challenge!!  To check out the details and see how you can win the chance to be featured on the ScrapFX blog see the group post here.  You'll be inspired by plenty of card creations to get your mojo flowing!!

This is the Father's Day card I created for my best friend - my hubs.  He is truly all I could ever ask for and more in a dad for my children.  He has been there through and through and ever will be.  He is a man who knows and loves the Lord, is kind, gentle, compassionate, tough when needed, hard-working, and so much more.  I'm blessed to have him in my life on the daily and so are our teens.

On this day I also wish three other amazing men in my life a Happy Father's Day, yes I said three.  I have quite the unique life story:

This man gave me life.  What a blessing and gift to be here on this Earth instead of other options that could have been chosen.  It took me a long time to find him and he has embraced me with all his heart. I am his daughter.

This man raised me up from the time I was hours old to the time I was a grown woman.  I was his adoptive daughter but never did I feel different than his own - he embraced me with all his heart. I am his daughter.

This man is my biological mom's husband.  From the time he met me he welcomed me in to his family with loving, open arms and treated me like his own - he embraced me with all his heart.  I am his daughter.

I sit and look at these pictures and think how blessed am I?  I feel so grateful knowing that each one of these men has touched my life in someway.  Some people never get the chance to have a father in their lives and I've been given the gift of three. I may not get to connect with them all the way I'd like to but again they've all touched my life, made memories in it that I will cherish forever.  For that I thank each of them.  

No matter how much time passes, I'll always know they love me and I'll always love them!

Thanks for letting me share a piece of my story along with some craft creations today.  I hope your Monday is marvelous one!!  

Quickie Tutorial: Stencil Embossing

Hey Sweetie Peeps!  Its been a long time since I've shared a tutorial with you and so today I shall give a quickie one on stenciling embossing.  This has been a popular technique I've used on cards I've shared and you'll be so surprised at how easy peasy this truly is. 

This card was created using an MSW card sketch.  I rotated the sketch and changed it up a bit to suit the vision I had in my head.  I really love using sketches for springboards in this way!

The cloud background on this card shows off the technique I'll be sharing today using some Crafter's Workshop stencils. Do you notice how the clouds seem puffy??  Pretty neat, right?  Let me show you how to do it.

 Since this tutorial is really so quick and simple I decided to go the collage route for the tutorial, follow along with the directions clockwise starting in the upper left hand corner.

Step One: Choose you patterned paper/cardstock and stencil you want to use.  Place the side of paper you desire to be embossed pattern down on top of stencil.

Step Two: Create you embossing sandwich. I use the Cuttlebug so my sandwich is A plate, B plate, stencil, paper, C plate.  Run this sandwich through the Cuttlebug.

Step Three: Gently peel away your paper from the stencil.  Notice I said peel.  Yes your paper may be stuck slightly to the stencil.  

Step Four: Stand back and marvel at your embossed piece of paper and prepare it to use on a project.  From here you can use inks, chalks, pens, and other soft dry mediums to highlight your embossed images.  I don't necessarily suggest wet mediums to highlight - they will take away a bit of the embossing and therefore defeat the technique.  But you can do what you like ultimately. ;)

This is what the cloud background looked like when it was completed with this technique:

Now it may take you a couple tries to get the embossing to work - just be patient and keep trying.  It'll happen. It took me a quite a few tries to get my alignment right and everything set before I actually had something work out the way I wanted it to.  At least you have the benefit of knowing which way the paper needs to be on the stencil - ha! ;)

 And here is another card I used the technique on, in fact it was the first one I ever tried this technique on:

You can see the original post for this card here.

Hope you like this technique and try it out!  If you do please share a link, I'd love to pop on by and see what you create using your embossed pieces. 

Have beautiful days!!