Beautiful and Brave
When I watch superhero movies, I see how brave the heroes are – they’re confident in what they’re doing and there’s no hesitation when they step in the way of the evil villain to protect the innocent. How brave and strong they are and how I wish I could be like that – fearless, confident, smart, and full of purpose!
But that’s not actually the full picture of being brave, is it? To be brave is to have the ability to take action even when you’re afraid. You have to build up courage.
There are quite a few women in my life who I look up to for their courage to step out of their comfort zone and take on a new challenge! Often times, they don’t see it. They only see their own insecurities, doubts and fears. The interesting thing that we often forget about being brave is that it doesn’t mean “not being afraid”, it means being afraid – but doing it anyway.
For the As You See It Challenge sketch today, I chose to use the sentiment from the retiring Strong and Beautiful stamp set from Stampin’ Up! and it has me thinking about the brave women in my life. They are an inspiration to me and help me to be a little bit braver by their example.
I’ve been doing a lot of die-cutting and paper layers lately and have been feeling like I’m neglecting my ink and stamps, so there’s some fancy inking tricks on this one!
I started by applying Daffodil Delight and Coastal Cabana ink to the Buffalo Check background stamp (retiring soon!). Then I used a piece of paper towel and blended the colours together and pulled off some ink to try to achieve a bit of a distressed look (it still stamped much nicer than I planned). I then added a bit of Granny Apple Green ink to the stamp where the yellow and blue met in the middle to blend the colours even more. With the large stamp facing rubber-side-up, I placed my Basic White cardstock on top of it and pressed evenly all over with my fingertips to transfer the ink to my paper.
I pulled out my Stamparatus stamp positioning tool and placed the checked piece there with a smaller piece of Basic White cardstock over top of it in the center, using the magnets to hold the papers in place. I used Jet Black Stazon Ink on the tree image from the retiring Rooted in Nature stamp set and stamped the image so it stamped on the smaller piece of paper and over the edges onto the larger checked piece. Using the Stamparatus allowed me to stamp it a couple times to get the best image. Good thing I did that, too, because my Stazon ink pad was a bit dry and stamped very poorly the first time! Good thing I had an ink refill on hand!
The black tree silhouette looked a bit stark on the small white piece of cardstock, so I grabbed a clear envelope and placed some ink directly from the ink pads of my Granny Apple Green and my Coastal Cabana. With my Stampin’ Spritzer filled with a water and rubbing alcohol solution, I spritzed the clear plastic, then flipped the plastic over and transferred the wet ink to my paper, creating the watercolour effect.
The rest of the card is more straight forward. I adhered the Buffalo Check piece to a slightly larger piece of Basic Black to create a very thin border, then attached it to the Thick Basic White cardbase with Stampin’ Dimensionals. The watercoloured tree image was layered on a Flirty Flamingo die-cut stitched rectangle from the Stitched So Sweetly Dies. These two layers were attached with Stampin’ Dimensionals to the front of the card. Then I stamped the sentiment from the retiring Strong and Beautiful stamp set with Versamark ink on a strip of Basic Black cardstock, applied White Embossing Powder and heat set it with my Heat Tool. I used the Banners Pick a Punch to flag the ends of this piece and adhered it to the front of my card with Stampin’ Dimensionals.
Finally, I added some of the retiring Gold Glitter Enamel Dots to my design.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela
If you walked away from an abusive marriage and are now a single working parent, you taught me what it means to be brave. If you came out to your friends and family as LGTBQ+, expecting you’d be rejected by many of them, I am inspired by your courage! If you started a new job, you moved to a different town, you took the city bus for the first time, you did that class presentation, you opened up to someone and let yourself be vulnerable – you have courage!
And sometimes being brave is not about the big moments in our lives. Sometimes, being brave is facing the day-to-day grind so you can have a roof over your head and food on the table. Sometimes, being brave is admitting that you’re struggling and you need help. Sometimes, it’s saying sorry.
I get so inspired when I think of the beautiful and brave people I know. There’s more courage in you than you realize.
There’s more courage in me, too.
