Lenten and Easter Cards

 A friend asked me to make cards for her prayer partners.  I, of course, was honored to be asked to make them.  Since she was giving them to the ladies as Lent started, I kept them simple, in keeping with the disposition of Lent.

I die cut the cross then embossed the top layer.  Instead of saving the cross die cuts for later, I made them all bookmarks to coordinate with the cards.  This is how I use a lot of my retired Designer Series Paper.  I used the Decorative Circle punch to create the top of the bookmarks.

Sorry, most of the other products I used for this project are long retired.

Then I surprised my friend by making her Easter cards for these same ladies.  Here I used a Paper Pumpkin stamp for the Easter lilies.  Once again, I die cut the cross to reveal the flowers on the next layer.  

The flowers were colored with Stampin' Blends.  To leave the flowers white, I colored all around the flowers with blue to highlight the white flowers.

No naked envelopes here!  For these, I stamped the flowers in green and used yellow ink on a small blending brush to add color.  Very quick when you're making several cards!

And I didn't let those crosses that I die cut, sit in my stash either.  I made Easter cards for my family with those.  Here I used the current stamp set Petal Park and the coordinating punch, and the Double Oval punch for my sentiment.

To add texture to the cross, I embossed the white cross with a woodgrain embossing folder and added several brown inks with a blending brush.  The So Saffron layer was also embossed with the Painted Texture 3D embossing folder after I stamped the leaves on it.

The flowers were stamped in So Saffron and Mango Melody ink.

I'm sorry I didn't post these earlier so as to inspire your Easter projects, but I didn't want to post them before the recipients received their cards.  Hope you're having a blessed Easter season.