Encouragement Squad - My Intro Day

Hello craft friends,

This news has been bubbling up inside me for weeks and I'm so happy to FINALLY be able to tell you all it.   Drum roll please....  I made the CAS-ual Friday Encouragement Squad!  How freaking awesome is that.

If you are not familiar with the new Encouragement Squad, let me tell you a little about it and link you to our new website.  Michele Gross' goal for the monthly Calling All Sistahs blog hop was to remind our sistahs to do their self breast exams and in doing so to spread awareness about the importance of early detection in a fun and light hearted way.  I took part in several of these monthly blog hops and when Michele was looking for Designers for a new team, I jumped at the chance.   You can read more about what makes this team different and special here. 

So here's how this is going to work:

On the 17th of each month,  a post featuring a parade of projects from the Encouragement Squad design team.  

The next day on the 18th, an encouragement challenge will begin for anyone and everyone who wants to participate! It will be a photo that features color chips. Players can use the color chips or draw inspiration from the photo, or both to create an encouragement card with no product and no genre restrictions. It could be for someone who was just diagnosed, going through treatment, recovering from any sort of illness or surgery, going through a rough time in a relationship or job, or experiencing a crossroads in life. There are a bazillion reasons that we might need to make an encouragement card to let someone know we are thinking of them, and that will be the main focus of this new challenge. 

Now that you know what's going on, let me show you the card i created for my intro post:

The first thing you have to know about me, is that I love penguins, so my first card w/CAS-ual Friday had to have a penguin on it.  Now, I'm sorry to say that the penguin is not one of Michele's stamps, but don't worry, in the coming months I'll work on her to bring us some animals stamps ;)

The main focus of this card is the floral speech bubble and I created it with the lovely Pretty Posies stamp set and coordinating dies.  I started by stamping and water coloring several of the flowers and leaves with my zig brush pens on watercolor paper.   I use strathmore mixed media 400 series.  Once all my flowers and leaves were done, I set them aside and die cut the bottom of my speech bubble.   

Next i started placing my flowers within the speech bubble trying to cover as much of the black glitter card stock speech bubble.   Once I liked their placement and they were all attached.  I die cut the bottom of the speech bubble again to get a clean bottom edge.  I added some teal enamel dots and using dimensional tape attached the floral speech bubble to my card front.  

Since I had a few flower leftover, I decide to make the inside a little special and glued them directly onto the inside panel along w/a die cut hello and the "I'm thinking of you" stamped sentiment from the same Pretty Posies stamp set

Thanks for stopping bye...  I'm beyond excited to be part of this new team and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of you on social media and at craft fairs.  Until next time... take care.