Pretty papers make me smile

Back when I was quilting, the part of the process that I loved the most was finding beautiful fabrics that would coordinate.  That has translated big time to papers now for my card making!  But with the advent of 6" pads, lots of the work has been done for us, as the papers can be mixed and matched at ease.  As I was checking out at Simon's last shopping time, I decided to go through their "All New, Just In" section, and I'm so glad I did, as I found this gorgeous Bazzill pad called Vintage Lace.  These are exactly the kind of patterns I've always been drawn to.  Here's what I made with them:

All of the papers except that pink gingham and the solids for the leaves and flowers are from the above-mentioned pad.  I wanted them to be the star of the show, so I cut them into long lengths (the aqua chevron strips are at the top of each sheet, so nothing went to waste today!).  The gingham is from an Authentique pad , the Flourish collection, the leaves are Simon's Green Apple cardstock, and the roses are the reverse of BoBunny double dotted papers.  The roses and leaves are from a Simon stamp set, Best Mom Ever, and the sentiment from a Lil' Inker set called Darling Diamonds.  The "smile" sentiment was one of the reasons I wanted that set.  

If you know me, you'll know that pink and green are a favorite combo of mine, as are dots and ginghams and flowers, so that sentiment was a natural for me!  Hope this makes you smile, too!

After I finished and posted my first card, THEN I remembered reading this morning on my Dashboard that there's a new Make It Monday Challenge called No-Sew Quilted Cards, and while I had everything still out, I made another card using the same papers as above.

I love using embossing folders to add a quilt-like look to cards!  Here I used a 1 1/4" punch, glued the squares together on a backing, then ran it through an embossing folder called Simple Interlock, by Darice.  It is the perfect size to work with my squares! I "bound" my little paper quilt in a pale aqua.  To qualify for the challenge, I added a flower made from PTI's Beautiful Blooms II #1, centered with a Dear Lizzy wood button, and an old Hero Arts/Archiver's sentiment. 

A fun afternoon spent playing today - thanks for coming by!