Sorry for the long absence. I certainly do believe that crafting is healing.  I was able to enjoy a beautiful day with beautiful women who share my beautiful love of making cards.  I made some wonderful cards at my lovely card class with Shalana Glass who is an awesome Close To My Heart representative. We made these first two cards at her card class.  The first one is a shaker card and she brought all of the supplies. I will add her website’s link at the end of this post so that you may ask her questions.  For the second card, I had used some of my own supplies.  The Hijabi (girl with the head covering) was printed from my computer and the frame was given to me by Karen, a friend that was at the crafting class with me.  The skittles are from So Suzy Stamps. The “MashaAllah” saying is from a pocket letter friend.  I was inspired so much that I actually made my own from my Cricut and some glitter paper    .  For my next card, I actually used a technique I just learned from Jennifer McGuire and I will also link her video at the end of this post.  I used regular table salt and Perfect Pearls.  Just mixed a quarter of a teaspoon of both in this napkin here.  . Next I used my water-color paper from Tim Holtz and Kuretake Gansai Tambi water colors.  The blues and purples mixed together and made a beautiful night sky.  Before the water-color dried I added my salt mixture on top by just sprinkling it on and then let it completely dry.  Once it was dry, I scratched off the salt with the side of one of my acrylic blocks to take off all of the salt.  I used my Altenew Stamp Set Ramadan Greetings and heat embossed the Masjid in silver embossing powder.  I cut the focal point to 3.5 in by 3.5 in and attached to black card stock measuring 3.75 in by 3.75 in.  I used Neenah Solar white card stock and made it a traditional top folding A2 . Using the same Altenew stamp set I stamped the sentiment in Memento Blzk Luxe ink and used clear embossing powder to make the sentiment pop.  After the sentiment was heat embossed I put the card together and added little stars glitter from Martha Stewart’s Iridescent Glitter.       This was just Saturday. I was so inspired that I had to so some more crafting.  I printed these girls from a download that my friend had sent to me.    For my next card.  I was watching a new program from Pakistan.  Her dress had this beautiful red swirl on black and I knew I had to recreate something.  I used my black card stock.  Stamped the large paisley from the Close To My Heart stamp set  called You’ve Got Flair in Versamark and used red glitter embossing powder.  After it was heat embossed I stamped the sentiment from So Suzy Stamps in Versamark and heat embossed that also in red glitter embossing powder.  I then used the bleaching technique to lighten the inside of the paisley and a little over the words. I had some extra black card stock

I cut a strip of it and glued it to just below the focal point of the card.    My last card is something I was just playing around with.   I used Pluto the Octopus, the Polka Dot Fish, the Striped Fish and the Coral stamps from So Suzy Stamps.  I heat embossed them using my Memento Black Luxe ink and clear embossing powder.  Then I used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi water colors and colored each one.  For the water scene I used the my VersaMagic Dew Drops Pigment Inks in Turquoise Gem, Ocean Depth  and my Tim Holtz DIstress Ink in Vintage Photo and rubbed the ink across Neenah Solar White card stock.  I used clear embossing powder while the ink was still wet and heat embossed the card stock.  Then I just cut the paper in swirls and layered them onto a A2 size card from Neenah Solar White card stock.  I had some rub ons that I then used for the sentiment.  Very elementary card, but thought it was a little cute any way.