Leaving the Nest

A coworker asked me to create a card for her friend whose last child was "leaving the nest". I        thought about making a card but you know how it goes, art just evolves! A card seemed way to small for what I wanted to do and just as much work (or fun, depending on how you look at it!), it ended up on an 8x8 canvas. 

When my youngest left our "nest", it was a rite of passage for me, as well as for him.  There was certainly an adjustment period. The house seemed empty, his room WAS empty, I miss both my kids. So I kept busy by painting his room. And little by little all of my craft supplies crept into his old room. It took me all of two weeks to fill that room up with my toys!! The next time he came home, he laughed and said, "wow, Mom, you didn't waste any time filling up my room!" I left room for a large air mattress!

Make ART Challenge

I love anything "Wendy Vecchi" and when I noticed the Make ART challenge blog, it gave me an idea.

I started with brown Kraft  paper for my card base. After searching through my Wendy stash I came up with Art Parts hearts which I basecoated with white gesso, then a coat of antique linen distress paint, stenciling one with a Wendy stencil and stamping the other using cornflower blue archival ink. I bordered the hearts with Tim's distress glitter.

You probably can't see it, but tried the faux plaster technique on the background and then used background stamp from Wendy set called Art Fit For A Queen. I stamped another solid background stamp (the moonrose art stamp.com) with cornflower blue archival, again, cut out and popped up on top of stripped background.

The cute little ink bottle is a Prima wood embellishment. I smooshed  it into versa mark and embossed with cornflower blue (what else!) embossing powder. The pen nib, arrow, lace and elegant flourishes are from my Tim stash, as were the letters (thinlets), which I also embossed with 

cornflower blue.

I had wanted to use a scallopped Art Part for the letters but it would have been way too bulky, so I
settled on a strip of kraft paper, decorating one edge with a border punch and stamping with a pin dot 

stamp from Wendy's Resident Artist stamp set. I attached the letters to the strip.

I am going to use this as an engagement card for a special couple!

Thank you to The Funkie Junkie Boutique for hosting this challenge!