ODBDSLC198 - He is Risen with pastels

The challenge at Our Daily Bread Designs this week (ODBDSLC198) is He is Risen with pastels. Create a card or project displaying a cross, verse or sentiment about the true meaning of Easter (not commercialised - no bunnies).

Here is my card:

I've used Our Daily Bread Designs Sheep, The Cross, Vintage Flourish Pattern Die, Fence Die, Beautiful Borders Die, Christian Faith Collection and Heart and Soul Collection paper pads.

To some, my card may not look like a "real" Easter card at first but, for me, it reminds me of Jesus in the following ways:

1. The ODBD Sheep image reminds me of Jesus (and Easter) when I look at it because I immediately think of Jesus as the Lamb of God. Jesus is called the Lamb of God in John 1:29 and 1:36. These verses point to Jesus being a sacrifice that would atone for the sin of the world. 

"...he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God 

who takes away the sin of the world!" " 

John 1:29 

And I love how the card worked out with the words "Lamb of God" being visible on the ODBD Christian Faith Collection paper pad just above the ODBD Vintage Flourish Pattern die!

2. Lead me to the cross (from the ODBD The Cross stamp set)- the cross is where Jesus died for our sins. This phrase reminds me of a song by the Newsboys (you can listen to it here). The chorus of the song says:

Lead me to the cross,

Where your love poured out

Bring me to my knees

Lord, I lay me down

Rid me of myself, I belong to you

Oh lead me, lead me to the cross

How thankful am I that Jesus has died on the cross, as our substitute, for my (and your) sins! But this is only half the story - Jesus then rose from the dead! In the resurrection Jesus is our representative, raised for our justification - that we might be right with God. To quote the words of my pastor a few Sunday's ago "the resurrection is God's approval of what was done on the cross was right. And if we are in Him - we are raised with Him."

For more inspiration for this challenge please visit my talented design team sisters:

Chris Olsen ~ Linda Carson ~ Diana Nguyen

Cheryl Scrivens ~ DJ Rants ~ Robin Clendenning

To see all the creations from the designers in one place or to join the challenge, click here. You have until 8 pm Sunday, 20 April EST (or 8 am Monday, 21 April AWST) to join us. For this challenge you may use any stamps but if you have any Our Daily Bread Designs stamps we would love to see you use them! If you participate you have the chance to win a $15 gift certificate toward ODBD stamps at their store or to be "spotlighted" for the Shining the Light Award (the Shining the Light Award is only for those who use ODBD stamps).

We would love to see your creations!!

A little more on how I made my card:

For my background paper I used ODBD Christian Faith Collection but it was a little too "dark" for my pastel coloured card so I swiped some Distress Stain Picket Fence across it and then used a baby wipe to get a more even coverage. I also did this to the paper (ODBD Heart and Soul Collection) that I used for the fence but not the Beautiful Borders (same paper as the fence just without the distress stain).

The one on the left has the Distress Stain Picket Fence swipe over it, the one of the right is the original.

I have then used Distress Stain Shaded Lilac to ink around the edges of my paper and dies. And also used it to "colour in" the pattern (dashed border) around the edge of the ODBD Vintage Flourish Pattern die while the paper was still in the die.

These are the Our Daily Bread Designs sets that I've used:

Materials List:

Copics: 

   Sheep - E30, Y21, E70, RV91, W3 and colourless blender

   Flowers - RV10 (and prismacolor pencil)

   Grass - G40, G82, G94 (and prismacolor pencils), Copic multiliners 0.1 and 0.3 mm

   Sky - B0000

Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs Sheep (you can also get this image in The Shepherd set), The Cross

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Ink Shaded Lilac, Picket Fence

Cardstock: X-Press It blending card, Bazzill textured Fawn, ODBD Christian Faith Collection, ODBD Heart and Soul Collection

Dies: ODBD Custom Vintage Flourish Pattern Dies, ODBD Custom Beautiful Borders Dies, ODBD Custom Fence Die

Other: Pebbles chalks, Prismacolor pencils, Copic multiliners 0.1 and 0.3 mm, Papercraft pearls, doublesided tape, X-Press It high tack foam mounting tape

Just before I go, today I also want to share with you a little Easter project my 2 and 5 year old girls worked on last weekend. (And I thought the project fitted in nicely with this week's ODBD challenge theme of Easter and pastels!)

I saw this project on pinterest and if you're interested the original link is here. Ours look no where near as neat as theirs but my girls and I had so much fun :-)

We weren't as technical as the ones on the link... and we did it slightly differently. The water balloons that I had bought were so tiny I couldn't get the easter eggs in them! So we ended up using normal size balloons - I just didn't blow them up very big. We put 3 small, solid easter eggs in each one. For the glue we used a mixture of PVA glue and water (probably about 2/3 PVA to 1/3 water). And we used 100% acrylic for our "string". Once they had dried, getting the balloons out was a little tricky as the balloons were not blown up to their maximum so they didn't "pop" but rather "hissed" down which meant they kind of got stuck to the "string". But after some poking with tweezers etc. we got them all out. Most of all we got to spend some time in the back yard together getting messy, enjoying each others company and talking about the true meaning of Easter!

Thanks for reading - have a Happy Easter!