Whimsy Stamps ~ We'll Always Have Paris

Hey crafty friends, I'm sharing two lovely cards I've made recently with the beautiful Fabulous Paris Quick Card Fronts from Whimsy Stamps. I adore this set of card fronts and there's a good reason why. We moved to Ville d'Avray just south of Paris when I was a little girl. We lived there for five years. I was 18 months old when we went, so French was my first fluent language, though I didn't retain it when we returned to New Zealand. I was 6 when we returned to New Zealand, and I needed to catch up missed schooling. France and New Zealand start their primary schooling at different ages. So I wasn't yet ready in France, but a year behind in New Zealand. 

My mum was a primary school teacher, so helped me catch up, but my French language skills suffered for this. I lament that we didn't continue speaking French at home, but life gets busy and mum had two more kiddos before we left France and had one on the way when we were returning home. So my big sister who is three years older than I am and had 3 years of French schooling, definitely had the advantage in retaining her grasp of spoken French. She has worked hard on it over the years and it really is very natural for her. She speaks beautifully! We both have Parisian accents, I just don't have the vocab! It's silly trying to order in a French restaurant during our visits to Paris, when I clearly sound Parisian, but can't string a sentence together! This has resulted in some funny interactions. Anyway, facts about me, you never knew you wanted to know?! Thanks for bearing with me.

Back in January, whilst I was taking a little creative break, I made my mumma a really pretty birthday card. Paris holds a special place in my mum's heart and it's no surprise I adore beyond reason, these beautiful Quick Card Fronts from Whimsy Stamps called Fabulous Paris. I personalised Mum's card with a sentiment from Whimsy's Slimline Bendy Borders Clear Stamp Set which had the Bonjour greeting and added the age she was turning with numbers from another Whimsy Stamp Set called Old Fart. That stamp set is hilarious, you have to check it out, but I just needed the numbers for this make. 

I created some interest around the edge with Whimsy's Zig Zag Stitched Rectangles Die Set and I completed the design with a triple wrap of beautiful Iridescent White Cord from Simon Says Stamp and a pretty paper rose from my stash. The rose is a very old purchase from Wild Orchid Crafts. It felt rather appropriate to add the rose, I was thinking of the song 'La Vie en Rose' by Édith Piaf when I was making this for Mum. I popped up the panel on a foam sheet with a 2mm loft and added it to the pretty soft pink pearlescent card base. 

My big sis had a birthday the month after my mumma and so loved Mummy's card, I made a Parisian themed card for her too. She's the only one of us kiddos (there are seven of us) who still speaks French fluently and she's truly such a natural! Paris is most definitely a special place for her. Our whole family has quite the love affair with Paris. My youngest siblings didn't live there when they were small, but one was married in France to an English man that grew up in France and my youngest brother's wife was an exchange student to France and speaks French beautifully too. So we seem to all have a story or connection to France in our family. I was genuinely overjoyed when Whimsy released this set of Quick Card Fronts and you can rest assured I have more than one set! 

I chose another panel from the Fabulous Paris Quick Card Fronts Set, for my sister's card. I trimmed it simply this time with the stitched border from the Honeycomb Die Set. This set is fantastic, such great value, because the stitched edge and honeycomb die element are separate from each other, so you get such great value with this set! I love how Whimsy adds extra value to their sets with tricks like this. I may not reach for the honeycomb element for every make, but you can bet I'll reach for this simple stitched border die a whole lot! Simple elegance, I love it and it fits an A2 card front beautifully.

I chose a birthday greeting from the card front set and diecut it with a lovely shaped fishtail die from the Quick Strips 3 Die Set. I mounted this on black foam roll with a 1mm loft and added some beautiful butterflies from the Field of Butterflies Die Set from Whimsy. It may be becoming apparent I'm pretty besotted with this die set. I've been using it loads! I wanted the beautiful panel to have space to really feature, so rather than make an A2 size card, I trimmed the sides with a toning cardstock, to draw out the beautiful Eiffel Tower in the picture and added it to a 6x6 card base, which I trimmed to be 5.5 x 5.5 inches to match the height of the Quick Card Front. The little vellum butterflies are such a sweet touch to this card and I was so delighted when my sis' saw it and told me a story about a friend who'd been making beautiful butterfly art for charity and she'd been so moved by it, so she was delighted her card had butterflies on it as it reminded her of her friend's art. So was very special giving it to her. 

Thanks for popping in today friends, I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure. Until then I wish you a wonderful and creative week. Hugs, Wends xoxo

(I share thumbnails to the elements I design with, in order to make your search for them easier, in case you like something I've used. I do use affiliate links where possible, and so appreciate if you use these when shopping. They cost you no extra whatsoever. I am proud to design for the companies I do and always feel happy to share where my inspiration and where my crafty stash comes from. I am occasionally gifted products to use, but I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own.)

Challenge Entries: