Altenew Educator & A Tribute Post for Melissa Dawn Lane

Today's card has special significance for me.  I found out on Friday that Melissa Dawn Lane of Honey Bee Lane (not to be confused with Honey Bee Stamps) passed away unexpectedly on October 2nd, leaving her husband and four children to cope with the enormous loss.  Melissa was a part of the Stamplorations Design Team as well as being on other Challenge design teams in the industry.  She was kind and encouraging to everyone in the industry and outside of that as well.  Melissa loved Butterflies and often featured them in the cards she made.  Stamplorations has a tribute page here for Melissa where you can submit a project in her honor between now and October 31st.  The page will remain as a tribute to her, but the linky and the mailing address will be removed. 

I was a fan of Melissa's work because she frequently joined in the challenges at the Simon Says Stamp Blog where I join in as often as possible.  Her style was pretty clean and simple.  Melissa was also an avid photographer and you can see a lot of her photography on her Instagram accounts here:  https://www.instagram.com/honeybeelanecards/ and here for a peek into her home life: https://www.instagram.com/mainepromisedlandfarm/.

My post today is also for the Altenew Educator Certification Program, "Color Your Day" class.  For a few months, I have had these butterflies sitting on my desk in my "to use" group.  I can think of no better occasion than to make a beautiful card for Melissa's family.  I hope the butterflies that Melissa so loved will make them smile.

I stamped several of the butterflies from the SSS Beautiful Day Stamp Set in Versamark on a sheet of 5 x 7 Fabriano Artistico Extra White Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper and heat set them with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I'm pretty sure this Fabriano paper is going to become a favorite for watercolor even though I didn't do any traditional watercoloring on it.  I chose to use an analogous color scheme but in this class, we learned about using a color wheel for Analogous, Complimentary and even Triad color schemes.  I have another family in color schemes that I call Duochrome.  "Duotone" is a type of photographic image that was very popular in the days before color film was so easily accessible by photographers of all levels. It includes black and white and sepia toned prints.  In cardmaking, I like to use this technique with a metallic and 1 additional color.  I have an example of this technique coming up on the 25th of this month.

I used Daniel Smith Watercolors but I wanted a very pigmented color so there's not much water mixed in with it.  For the Purple color, I mixed Quinacridone Purple with Quinacridone Pink.  For the turquoise color, I mixed Ultramarine Turquoise with Phthalo Blue.  I used two shades for the Leaves, Deep Sap Green and the same color mixed with a bit of Aureolin for the lighter green shade.

Since my husband is only home on the weekends, I spend a lot of my weekend time with him and once I finished coloring in the butterflies, I let the images dry overnight and then hit them with a bit of shimmer mist this morning.

I had a background that I had made during the AECP "Irresistible Inking Techniques" class that I wanted to use for the background so I die cut that panel and made a card base from Aqua Mist Cardstock.  I used a brayer with a watered down solution of ink to make the background.  I've linked that blog post for you. I like that it's a nice soft color with a very subtle texture.  For Easy Mailing, I kept the card fairly flat but I did use some thin foam tape under the butterflies to make them pop a little bit and added a bit of bling.

For the inside sentiment, I chose one from the "Wings of Hope" set that Tasnim and I collaborated on for Altenew.  It's a quote from Washington Irving and one I found myself recalling often after my brother's murder in 2014.  The year 2014 was a terrible year of loss for me personally.  There were several deaths of close friend's family members, a family member of my own, and I know that Melissa's family will have moments where they will struggle to hold back the tears.  I want to let them know that it's okay to cry.  It happens less often as the years pass, but sometimes there are still things that will bring them bubbling to the surface.

I hope you all were privileged enough to know Melissa through her paper crafting and card making.  Melissa, you will be missed!  I'm not including a link supply list for this post as I feel it would be in very poor taste, but I've named the products I used and you can find them easily if you'd like to.

I am sending lots of love and hugs to Melissa's family and friends at this tough time in their lives.  If you'd like to send a card to Melissa's family, you can send them to Shery Russ of Stamplorations at the address linked at the Stamplorations Blog before October 31st.  After that time, the address will be removed. 

Please add a butterfly stamp or die to the envelope so Shery will know it's for Melissa's family and she will send them on.