SweeNSassy – LadyEm ~ Under Mary's Mantle

Dear Ones,

Happy Wednesday. This past weekend we celebrated First Holy Communion at our Parish on base. And I reached out to the CCRE to see how I could help. We agreed that I would make cards for the children and cupcakes for the reception afterwards.

I am so blessed to have so many crafty tools… and per my agreement with my hubby I am using them. Here are the cards:

Card Recipe:
TOOLS: StampinUp Stampin Cut & Emboss Machine.
Cross Die (part of a set from Nestabilities).
INKS: Soft Sky and Pool Party blue Inks from StampinUp
Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens.
For the splatters I used the ink from two blues spectrum pens, mixed with a little water, and splatted with the fan brush. I splatted the ink over sponged on soft sky & pool party blues.
STAMPS: The image and sentiments are from Doves of Peace, from SweetnSassy Stamps.
PAPER: Both from my PaperTreyInk and StampinUp Stashes.
Colors are Ivory, and various grays and light blues.

I love the way they turned out and I hope the families did too.

Now, for the cupcakes… I am a baker, and I have to say – the cupcakes were fantastic. A great recipe from the late 1970’s… just can’t be beat. But the icing… AACK. For some reason it was runnier than it should have been. I tried so many baking tricks… and the icing tasted good. But I wasn’t happy.

I have to tell you guys… God had my back. Somehow between that and the fact that my hand-mixer broke mid-beating the icing together… God helped me out and things went well. Thankful the CCRE is calm and knows I am working on my perfectionist issues that can make me awkward… and she laid it all out. It looked great.

It feels good to be getting involved again. I’m hopeful.

Anywhoooo it’s just a quick post for today. I have so many things to talk about… but I’m overthinking how to say them. HA! I’m not kidding. I want my blog to be loving and kind… and I am trying to balance it with real issues I want to talk about. Praying about it. But – please stay tuned.

As always, wishing you lovely readers…

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm

Dear Ones,

I hope you are well. SO much has been going on here, I am behind in blogging. If I had a dollar for every time I said that, I’d be a millionaire. Anywhooo…

Because this is my person blog and my craft blog (because I only have the mental capacity for one) I’ll share with you… my husband had a bad colonoscopy. He’s going to be fine. But it’s gonna be a medium-to long road. It’s precancerous, with a slight chance the part they couldn’t get out will be not great news. And they will do the resection of his colon on Fat Tuesday. So Fasting and Prayer take on a more powerful witness, as we stand faithful in healing. Now let me tell you about our God. We are in Italy, and we thought we were going to have to go to Germany or the States for Surgery, which would have been a heck of an expense. But, it just so happens that there is a specialist here, who will only be here till the end of February, and who is assisting in my husband’s surgery. She has written chapters of textbooks and papers on robotic/gastro-colorectal surgeries. I mean – what are the chances. Also, so far, everything has come back good news, but they are cautioning us not to proclaim it all gone until they go in and see. So we wait.

In the mean time, I hadn’t been washing my face before bed, and my eye was infected last week. And now, I have a bad cough, and I’m staying away from him so I won’t get him sick. If you can spare a prayer, I’d sure appreciate it. Peace and comfort for us all, and healing for my hubs.

Life is hard sometimes, and it’s hard for me to blog the pain, because I’ve spent so long covering it all up for my sanity’s sake. I hate to burden others. Sigh. ❤ I have been praying Novenas – St. Peregrine and St. Rita so far. More to come. So thankful for my Catholic Faith and all my praying friends of every faith.

SO now, let me get to the cards. I wanted to share with you a couple Valentine’s Cards I made.

**Card #1 –** **Card Recipe**
**Stamps:** Genuine Love by Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps
**Paper:** PaperTreyInk and StampinUp
**Ink:** Jet Black Amalgam Ink from Gina K Designs, Distress Oxide in Spun Sugar, and Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry
**Embellishments:** Black scrap ribbon.

***Directions:*** I had the Bokeh Paper (I made it and will tell you about it below). And I simply took red card stock, stamped roses on it in black, used the bokeh paper, and then stamped the hearts onto a white layer, used two different distressed inks with the filled-in heart. Stamped my sentiment, and an arrow, went around the edge of the paper with black ink for dimension, and added a piece of scrap ribbon.

In order to make Bokeh paper, you can use a ready-made stencil OR make your own, as I did. I used various inks on a pink piece of paper, and this is how it came out. Christi Beck taught me this way back in 2015. And if you don’t know her, you should check out her blog StampinTX. AMAZING! If you click the StampinTx, you will be taken to the Bokeh Technique, but you really do want to follow her.

***Card #2 – Card Recipe***
**Stamps:**Lots of Love and Textured Tiles 5 From Sweet ‘N Sassy stamps
**Paper:** PaperTreyInk and Stampin Up. Also Water Color Paper (from a watercolor pad)
**Ink:** Image stamped with Jet Black Amalgam Ink. I colored the image with Copic Markers.
Used acrylic Inks to make the background of the “DP”. Painting hearts is easy and I had so much fun making it.
I used Pink Pirouette from StampinUp and embossing powder on the hearts from the Textured Tiles set to add texture to the paper.
**Embellishments:** Fuchsia Scrap Ribbon, and a Red Heart Crystal.
**Directions:** I used a lavender paper from PaperTreyInk as the base. I frames the images with a deep red paper,
and laid it onto the heart paper. Added a fuschia ribbon and a crystal heart.

I hope you loved the cards. I wish you were all in Italy and would come color and play at my house. I can’t hardly get anyone interested here… and I even wear deodorant, I swear it. HAHA

I pray you are all well. I’ll be back soon, I promise.
Please email me or leave a message so that I can pray for you!

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm