*Cue Trumpet Fanfare*

Dear friends, I have not one but THREE cards to show you today. Yippee! Now, granted I didn't create all of them today. That would've been impressive.

My first card is for Kazan's Sketch 47 at 2 Sketches 4 You. It's been a long time since I've played over there, but they always have great sketches!

This card was kind of a pain in the butt. I couldn't find any patterned paper in my stash that matched the blues I had picked out for the rest of the card. So, I ended up rubbing a crayon over a piece of white Bazzill swiss dots paper. (Which, actually, now that I've heard myself say it, doesn't sound like that much trouble... but it took me a long time to figure it out. Haha.) The bird is made from a paisley die cut on the "Stretch Your Imagination" Cricut cartridge.

Next up is for the Day 3 Challenge at 365 Cards. At first when I saw the challenge, I was like, "OoOooh, no." But it turns out it's not nearly as complicated as it looks. In fact, I pretty much love how it turned out.

I googled "string art" and this boat was the first thing that came up under images. The pattern is free and you can find it HERE. I didn't follow it exactly, but it helped A LOT. The string is stitched right into the paper because I didn't really have anything else to anchor it with. Even small brads would've been way too big. My mom is using this one as a sympathy card for a friend.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be over-using the kraft paper until I run out. Good thing I only bought 10 sheets of it! Lol. This last card is just for fun.

The other night my mom said, "Here, I saved this for you" and handed me the chopped-off end of a bunch of celery. The initial "HUH?" reaction was quickly replaced by "Oh, cool!" when she pointed out that the chopped end looked like a rose! I used acrylic paint to "stamp" the rose, then hand-painted the leaves. Pretty neat, huh?

As always, thanks for looking!