Circles and 60 Years

Welcome back to our blog. Michigan has put us through our paces with the weather over the last ten days. We have snow storms, extreme cold spells, spring like thaws, followed by icy rain and another cold snap all in little over a week. Literally slid across the parking lot to work today. Considered borrowing a zamboni form the ice rink down the road to smooth out the parking lot so we could skate during my lunch break. Thankfully the “spring like thaw” occurred at a perfect 48 hour window over which we were able to visit my parents and celebrate their 60th anniversary.

In this day and age 60 years of marriage is well worth celebrating. I definitely look up to them and their achievement. (Well I look down to my mom but just because she is little itty bitty thing!) They have weathered the good days and the bad days, raised 5 daughters (my poor father) and still they smile on a daily basis. I wanted to make a card that I felt represented the growth of their marriage over the years. While mulling this over I saw this weeks challenge from Art Impressions “Circles and Stripes” In my head I saw a seedling growing into a tree with a circle of focus on the growing plant. Below you will see the card that grew from those two ideas.

I wanted to show the growth of their marriage as a flowering plant that was growing from a seedling. Three identical pots were stamped and then I “grew” my tree using my Art Impressions watercolor stamps. It was important for the focus to be on the tree itself and not the pots so I added a layer of vellum and strategically die cut circles out of the vellum to draw your eye to the important part of the images. I love how the vellum just added a dreamy look to the card and a peek at the growing tree. I attached my vellum with eyelets. It seems like eyelets are now considered “old school” but I still like to use them. With eyelets I never have to worry if my adhesive can be seen through the vellum because there is no adhesive! Besides the theme was circles and eyelets are, well circles, right. So they were a perfect embellishment to go with my circle windows.

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Inside I wanted just a simple sentiment to go with the largest tree. I used white on white cardstock to frame the tree because I really wanted the focus to stay in the center of the card.

For my front sentiment, I looked through my plethora of stamps and could not find any that seemed to say what I needed, so I put my daughters to work. They decided a Haiku was called for and came up with the lovely sentiment that adorns the outside of my card. I printed the haiku up on cardstock and framed them in matching pink to finish off my card. That also finishes off this post, thank you for stopping by today.