Faith Tag

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This was made for the April challenge on The Bunny & The Bee's Crafty Hive Facebook group, to make a tag with a positive message to encourage others through the present Coronavirus crisis.

I wanted to present the biblical theme of 1 Corinthians 13 from the New Testament.. Faith Hope & Love, and as I have a collection of Christian-themed stamps that are almost from that era, it was obvious to use them! The first is the lovely background that I stamped in Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide. The stamp is wood-mounted, 'Faith Hope Love' (ref. G7070) from Paper Inspirations*.

The 'Faith' lettering came from another stamp, and I masked out the smaller text and superimposed the bold word in Versafine Onyx Black on top of the background.

This stamp, also ancient and wood-mounted, is 'Faith' (ref. S089-N ©2003) from Wordsworth* stamps.

The butterflies are both from the same stamp, also wood-mounted.. 'Butterfly #2' (ref. CDD-677C) from Cat Dancing Design (made by Cornish Heritage Farms*).

The poppy heads were cut from stamping the Crafty Individuals' 'Pretty Poppy' (CI-210), twice, and raised slightly on recycled cardboard. 

The 'love' word comes from my growing stash of obscure dies and die-cuts that I've been collecting for a while now... some from eBay, some from kind friends on groups. This word started out as 'lovely', and I cut the last two letters off. I wanted to add 'hope', too, but that's on its way and hasn't arrived yet. Delayed in the post because the Royal Mail is short-staffed, thanks to the virus, bless them.

It was fun revisiting some old favourites. Sadly, *Paper Inspirations, *Wordsworth and *Cornish Heritage Farms are no more. Such a shame. I miss them. Hand me a tissue. From 2 metres away.  #sniff

Thomas Kinkade - Stonehearth Hutch...

I have been in love with Thomas Kinkade's paintings since I visited Colorado for Thanksgiving back in 2000. A lovely memory.. I had been developing a relationship on-line with a man called Mike from Denver whom I'd 'met' on a Christian singles site, and I flew over to the US to meet him for real. We didn't click romantically, but he was a wonderful host, and took great care of me, and took me all over his outstandingly beautiful home state, including Beaver Creek (I think it was Beaver Creek.. it might have been Vail, as we went to both.. and Breckenridge and Boulder, and..).. Anyway, in one of those places, there was a Thomas Kinkade gallery. Enchanting and wonderful, where they dim the lighting and all the lights in the paintings come alive. Also Mike's mum worked in a big Christian bookshop in Denver which had Thomas Kinkade stuff for sale, too, so I strongly associate anything Thomas Kinkade with happy, festive times.

It's a real pity that Mike and I didn't click, as I loved his family, and they seemed to take to me, too, and I would have loved living in Colorado. Hmm. (thinks) Wonder what he's doing now?

So.... I was thrilled to bits when I discovered a while ago that Cornish Heritage Farms have a range of Thomas Kinkade stamps! Woohoo! And I love this one in particular. (There's a lot of love around on my blog this evening! lol)

This stamp is Stonehearth Hutch (aka Christmas Cottage), mounted onto acetate, of course, with the holly punch that Dolly FORCED me to buy, and the MS pine branch punch, and some other bits n' pieces.