Whimsical Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes!

Happy Wednesday, my dear crafty friends! Two cards in two days... color me sparkly! :o)

Today is a VERY special Whimsical Wednesday! New adventures are beginning and I am honored to tell you that Stephanie has asked me to stay on for another term! I am ecstatic. She is coming out with a new stamp line, so stay tuned here and at her Whimsical Designs home for the release week date! It will be coming VERY soon. :o) I am blessed to have the opportunity to showcase her stamps as a member of her Design Team... and let me tell you, you are going to love them! I am eager to begin creating with them. :o)

Additionally, Stephanie has posted a Design Team call. :o) There are some permanent Design Team positions and Guest Designer positions open. Visit Whimsical Designs for the details. :o)

And now, let's get crafty! The challenge this week is Anything Goes! Whatever strikes your fancy, we'd love to see it! :o) This card I'm about to share with you is a record, my friends. I literally had two hours to craft. TWO. That's an insanely small window for me to come up with a plan and execute it. There was fear, I tell you. I even said I couldn't do it! But then... my heart said, "JUST DO IT!" Make like Nike! You know what's funny? This is the quickest and simplest card I've ever made, yet it still portrays the message that was on my heart. Card-making is a beautiful thing!

"Love Heals"

I had to take this picture in the dark (which was funny), but hopefully most of the sparkling details still shine through. (The entire main base is sparkly.) Despite the time crunch, I had a message to share. One of the primary reasons I bought the Wall Decor and More cartridge is because of this dancer. I've longed to use her, but was a bit apprehensive. Many of you know portions of my dance status. Suddenly, I just *needed* to use this beloved dancer. But with such a short time frame, I freaked myself out wondering how I could do it justice. I mean, this is DANCE. The first thing that came to me is that love heals. From there, I knew nothing else mattered. Whatever was with it was icing on the cake. The sentiment and dancer were there, and that was enough to propel me onward.

Love is healing my body... and I hope to return to the stage or studio where a powerful performance can inexplicably bring healing love to someone in the audience, whatever it is that they need. Emotional or spiritual healing... all art forms innately possess power if you're driven by a heavenly force. And as is stated, love never fails. :o) Our sweet dancer here has released a trail of sparkling rhinestones as she gives her heart to her audience, whether it's an audience of One or a full house. Her sparkling love has burst into this red and green filigree design, accented with rhinestones, to carry out the (sparkly embossed) message that love heals. The filigree design from Storybook is actually cut in half because I made it far too large, which proceeded to somewhat make it appear as a magical Christmas butterfly. That aspect was unintentional, brought to my attention by my boyfriend when I showed him my completed card. So perfect! My explosion of love just so happened to morph a bit into a butterfly! I am tickled sparkly pink.

The lacy card design is from Elegant Edges and I embossed the sparkly Core Couture cardstock with my favorite snowflake folder. She's dancing in a winter wonderland, her body steady and secure upon the red ribbon dusted with 'snow.' But you guys know me... that's not merely flowy red ribbon. It represents the healing power of red love, flowing to us and then through us. While I love the crisp red against the pristine white regardless of theme, this is Christmassy for a purpose. My hope is that the day we celebrate the ultimate gift, I will be able to dance as a gift to and from the Lord. This is my third year saying something of that nature. Maybe this is my year. :o) See how the dancer's arabesque has extended beyond the lacy border? She's breaking through barriers. :o)

I did not intend to make this post long, so forgive me. It all went into the making of this card, so I wanted to share. :o)

I hope you'll play along with us this week and link up your Anything Goes project at the NEW challenge home of Whimsical Wednesday's: Whimsical Designs. I would love to see your creations! Our fabulous sponsor this week is my fellow Design Team member Nanne of Nanne's Creations. She is donating a marvelous variety of Webster Pages scrapping supplies to one random winner who participates. Thank you, Nanne! :o)

Be sure to dance on over to Stephanie's blog to see the rest of the Design Team's projects! Thank you for visiting me today. If you persevered through this entire post, you deserve a cupcake. :o) (Or even if you didn't... because I like to share cupcakes.)

One final thing... it's almost FRIDAY! It's nearly time to celebrate the opening of Cindy's Scraptastic Designs with our kick-off blog hop! Hope to see you there, my friends. :o)

Key Recipe Components:
 * Cricut cartridges: Elegant Edges, Gypsy Wanderings, Storybook, Wall Decor and More
 * Cuttlebug embossing folders: Swiss Dots, Winter Wonderland pack
 * Paper: Core'dinations, DCWV
 * Spellbinders Nestabilities: Labels Four
 * Sentiment: Computer generated
 * Ribbon: Hobby Lobby
 * Miscellaneous: iRock, Stickles (on sentiment embossing)