The cards I made this week for friends, family and my church family

Anniversary card for my Husband

I just love it when I can make a card without relying on patterned paper.  Don't get me wrong, I love my pattern paper and I have a ton of it but sometimes it's nice to just to be able to rely on what you've learned in crafting to make the projects.  I mean, Come on guys, I challenge you to use just your techniques to make a project.  Sure it's beautiful to cover the front of your card with pattern paper but it's also the easy way to craft and you know it if you are really honest with your self.  I am guilty of it most of all.  I post cards all the time that have multiple pieces of patterned paper on them but sometimes I like to, so to say, get back to my roots and just use a technique or two to make my own beauty.  For this card I took a white  4.25 x.5.5" card base and first used my embossing powder bag to remove the oils and static from the card so that the embossing powder would only stick to the versa mark ink. So I took my stamp from Hero Arts and inked it up with the versa mark ink then stamped it down on the card base.  I then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  Then I picked my distress inks in four colors: salty ocean, picked raspberry, squeezed lemonade, and spiced marmalade. I used an ink blending tool to apply the distress ink to the card front.  The embossing powder will resist the ink and the card will remain white underneath.  Once you are done adding ink all you have to do is wipe the card base down with a dry towel to remove any excess distress ink.  The sentiment is from the Tilted banner sayings stamp set from Simon Says Stamp and the banner die also goes with that set and can be purchased separately.   I then just simply added some orange toned flowers from Recollections by Micheal's stores and made a bow out of some shimmery green wired ribbon I had in my stash.  I hope you enjoyed the card today and I hope you have a blessed and safe Memorial Day holiday. And I hope you all have a very Blessed Sunday. I've got to be off but I'll be back tomorrow with another card. (Still trying to play catch up). Talk to you soon, much love and hugs, amy k