Swedish Poetry - Javisst gör det ont...

At Splitcoast, they had two wonderful challenges this week. The Ways To Use It Challenge was about to use text in the design, and the Limited Supplies Challenge wanted us to use text in a foreign language. I was long time thinking about which language to use - I decided to use neither English (though it is of course a foreign language to me) nor German (though this would be a foreign language to most of you).
So I decided to us a Swedish poem by Karin Boye for my text element. For those who are interested in the poem, here's the text and its translation:

Ja visst gör det ont när knoppar brister.
Varför skulle annars våren tveka?
Varför skulle all vår heta längtan
bindas i det frusna bitterbleka?
Höljet var ju knoppen hela vintern.
Vad är det för nytt, som tär och spränger?
Ja visst gör det ont när knoppar brister,
ont för det som växer
och det som stänger.

Of course it hurts when buds burst.
Otherwise why would spring hesitate?
Why would all our fervent longing
be bound in the frozen bitter haze?
The bud was the casing all winter.
What is this new thing, which consumes and bursts?
Of course it hurts when buds burst,
pain for that which grows
and for that which envelops.

I like this poem - what do you think about it?

I stamped the text (HeinDesign) with Versamark onto violet cardstock and embossed it with white powder. Then I stamped the rose (Stampin'Up) with versamark onto white cardstock, embossed it with violet powder and colored the rose with Stargazers Palette metallic watercolors.

No Pink Leaves!

I finally managed to do a Splitcoast challenge again: Friday's Limited Supplies Challenge suggested to create a card with leaves on it (easy thing, I thought, and already had some green-brown colors in mind) and some pink on it (in honor of the breast cancer awareness month). Pink? Piiiink??????? Did they really mean PIIIIINK??? Okay, I use often pink color combos for my cards, no problem with this color, but how to combine leaves with pink????
I decided to use some pink rhinestones - I hope that counts, LOL!



I stamped the image with Versamark onto cream cardstock, then embossed with Autumnal Impressions sparkling embossing powder. I colored the image with metallic watercolors (by Yasutomo) and sponged some tea dye distress ink onto the cardstock. I didn't cut but tear the image. Do you know how you can easily achieve precise tearing? Use a wet brush to draw the wanted tear line onto the cardstock - it then will tear exactly along these wet lines! I edged the torn cardstock with tea dye distress ink, then added the pink rhinestones and attached the whole thing onto some green cuttlebug-embossed and gold-wiped (Brilliance Galaxy Gold) cardstock and then onto a butterscotch card.

What do you think?

And, hey, don't you forget: Tomorrow there will be another Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge!! Get a sneak peek today!

Friendly Flowers in a few stolen minutes

I just stole away a few minutes from my much too busy agenda to stamp a quick card. I received these wonderful flower stamps (Autumn Leaves, Rhonna Farrer collection) recently from my dear blogging friend Sankari and couldn't wait any longer to use them.
Because I only had a very few minutes, I decided for a back-to-basic card and stamped the flowers with brown Memento ink randomly on some pink cardstock. Then I stamped the flower twine with Versamark onto brown cardstock and embossed it with "strawberries & cream" embossing powder, also the sentiment (Wordsworth Stamps). The sentiment was mounted onto a scallop square punchout (Marvy Uchida punch) which I sponged a little bit with Chocolate Brilliance ink (I used Brilliance ink to sponge because the Memento ink pads stamp GREAT, much more detailed than Brilliance, but are just unusable to sponge because they are too stiff for that) and mounted onto the card with dimensionals. I added a few pink rhinestones.
Sankari, I had sooooo much fun with these stamps! I'm sure they'll become some of my favorites! Thank you again so much! For sure, these were the most funny fifteen minutes I had during the whole week!!! Yeah, how do you say - born to stamp, forced to work...