Okay, so I admit, this card is a bit of a stretch.  I went out on a limb and tried some digital techniques that I have never used before in hopes of creating a great card.

My littlest sister is one of the most important people in my life.  On a darker note, she has a jaded past.  She got wrapped up with some terrible choices and unfortunately it consumed her life for over 10 years.  It lead to a strained relationship between her and I, her and our parents and her and my kiddos. 

Unfortunately, too many people can relate to my story, and more so, too many people do not find themselves out of these bad life decisions and find themselves in prison, or worse...dead.  

On a lighter note, this, fortunately, hasn't been the case for my sister.  She was on a path of self help with several failed attempts.  When, during a good period, she found herself pregnant.  Let me tell you, I was so very scared.  I knew that she had it in her to be an amazing and wonderful mother, but, with a short time of sobriety, I was so very worried and concerned that the additional stresses with motherhood would break her.  Boy was I wrong!  She has overcome all of the hardships and all of the stressors.  She is now four years clean, she has a beautiful family with two babies and two step children whom she adores.  She has a meaningful career to which she is licensed in counseling troubled women with addiction.  She takes her job seriously and she really cares deeply in helping women come up from where she once found herself.  Anyway, I could go on and on with how proud I am of her and how there was a time when I truly had no hope that I would ever get my sister, my best friend, one of the best people I have ever known, back.  But, here we are today, and I can say, I do believe in miracles.

This card is a tribute to her.  It is a little goofy, but from the heart all the same.  I decided to make her a card to honor how much I see her growth.  I thought, she is such a hero in my eyes.  For her nieces and nephews, for her sisters and brother, for her own children and for the women she is trying to help every single day.  For this card, I took a picture of my sister and used a 'cartoon app' to filter her head shot.  I got the perfect black and white outline of her face, I sized it using the canva app, printed it and then used my one inch circle die and cut around her face.

I wanted the background to look like air blowing.  Keeping the image of superheros flying through the air in my mind (though I am aware not all super heroes fly), I decided to use a few different light blue distress ink colors for my background.  I used my very large acrylic stamp block and smooshed my ink colors in various places on the block and then spritzed with water.  I had a good play at this for quite some time, turning my card front every which way, sometimes using my heat gun to dry the layers in between quickly to get more texture.  Then, once it was to my liking, I made sure it was completely dry, prepped the card front with my anti-static bag and used the 'Wavy' background stamp with Versamark ink and immediately covered it with fine white embossing powder and heat set it with my heat gun. 

Then, I cut five 2x3" rectangles of white heavy weight card stock.  I wasn't precise with this, I just eyeballed it, I didn't even care if my lines were straight.  Then, the fun started.  I picked out different colors of distress ink, what I thought each super hero logos would look best in.  Using my extra large acrylic stamp block I smooshed the coordinating colors one super hero at a time.  I gave the ink a few spritz of water and then smooshed one of the pieces of card stock into the ink, turning it every which way until I got an ink splatter that I liked best.  I cleaned off my acrylic block and repeated this process with different coordinating colors for each superhero I intended to use as well as over the picture I created and printed of my sister.

Before stamping each image, I allowed the paper to thoroughly dry and then I prepped my card stock with an anti-static bag. Then, I stamped five of my favorite super hero logos from the 'Full Circle: Assemble Vol 1' stamp set each on each rectangle with black ink, covered with clear embossing powder and heat set with my heat gun.  I chose orange and purple ink for my sister's picture since those are her favorite colors.

I did not have a circle die that would cut the exact circle I wanted of the superhero logo, so I fussy cut each of them.  I did use my 1" circle die to cut six circles from dark blue card stock to mat each superhero and my sisters face. Then I arranged them onto my card front.  I decided to mat my card with shiny gold card stock and then adhered to my white card base.

I used various stamp sets to piece together the sentiment.  And used tiny alphabet dies to cut out the word mom three times from white card stock and stacked and glued them together to give them a bit of dimension.  I used some blue ink to blend over my sentiment strip and the letters M O M.  I used the same shiny gold as I did to mat my card front and matted my sentiment strip with it as well.  Finally, I used a gold pen and traced over the word Mom.

This card was certainly a little out of the box and probably kind of goofy considering I had to turn my sisters face into a cartoon!  But, I am so proud of her and wanted to celebrate how much she means to me!

Thank you so much for reading my story.  If there is anyone in your life that is struggling with self-destruction and bad life decisions, have hope.  Love them, set boundaries and have hope. I truly didn't think we would ever find ourselves on the other side. And we have.

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