13

That's how many posts I wrote on the blog this year... 

I don't know who is still out there reading this, but if you are still around, THANK YOU! 

I have been a bad blogger, and I could blame it on China and the fact that blogs are illegal, or the internet and the fact that it's incredibly slow... But the truth is, I just don't "make" like I used to - and it's ok.... 

Hello there! 

It’s high time I get back into some challenges, so today I looked up:

MFT’s Card Challenge 401 and it’s another great one that’s easily adaptable. 

Here’s my card:

The background is some simple oxide ink through a stencil (linked below), with some wonderful layered butterflies as the focal images. 

I don’t have the matching dies, so I fussy-cut them out myself. They were pretty easy! 💪🏼

I popped the butterflies up to make it look like they were floating. 

Such a simple, but striking card, no? 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Thanks for stopping by! 💋

Supplies:

Stamps (MFT): beautiful butterflies, Anything But Basic Birthday Wishes

Stencil: TCW Onion Skin 

Inks: Ranger Oxide Inks

• stencilled background (distress inks)
• stencilled background (glitter paste)
• Patterned paper strips
• Die Cuts (Snowflake Crafting Dies - Technique Tuesday)
• Sentiment Stamp (Spirit Of December - Technique Tuesday)

I don't normally do "life updates" but I have been somewhat reclusive and it's been really quiet around here. 

Firstly, I will say that blogging, crafting, and doing anything beyond having the energy to be a good and competent teacher to my students has taken a back seat. I find the extremely long days here, in addition to the long blocks (each class is 1.5 hours) extremely draining. I have Fibromyalgia which is a horrible disease to deal with on it's own, but add onto that an extremely demanding job - I haven't coped well... 

Secondly, over the summer my Grandma was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, went into the hospital, and 6 weeks later passed away on September 11th.