Being a sentimental person at heart, I cannot bring myself to throw away any of the lovely handmade cards that I receive.  With the best of intentions, I have started collecting and sorting these cards into boxes by occasion planning to use them on scrapbook layouts.  Confession time – I have not actually done that yet.  All the cards are still sitting in the boxes, the pictures are still on my PC and I have several empty albums!  As I was putting away a lovely card from Patty Bennett, the leader of our Luv2Stamp group and my friend, I realized I could make a page featuring her beautiful card and that it would be the subject for my blog post!

In a small way, recycling the card rather than throwing it out, is a way to be a good steward of the earth.  I realize that this is not an action that will have significant impact, but it is something.  Not only can I reduce and reuse by incorporating the card into a layout, I can also impart some knowledge about gardening and the importance of caring for soil.  You see I am planning to use this layout to document a gardening project with my niece when she visits me this summer.

Patty’s card is simply gorgeous!  She used the beautiful Hydrangea Hill suite to create this card for me.  It is the perfect choice to create a spread about gardening as I am planning to replace a hydrangea that I lost last year!  I used her card as inspiration for the rest of the layout.  The clusters of hydrangea flowers are cascading over the pages to frame the photo mats and journaling spot.  The pinks, purples and blues in this paper are lovely and make the perfect complement to the green background.  My grandmother was especially enamored of blue hydrangeas.  I was amazed when she told me that you had to have the right nutrients in the soil for blue flowers.  I thought dirt was just dirt!  She told me for hydrangeas to be blue the soil had to be acidic and if there was too much alkali in the soil, the flowers would be pink.

My niece is going to be so excited to plant such beautiful flowers.  She will start kindergarten in the fall and I think this is the perfect age for her to start learning about gardening, protecting the earth and preserving family traditions.  The sentiment on the card is perfect too – Miss Mia is capable of amazing things!

Thank you so much for hopping along with us today! Danielle is up next and I know you will love what she has to share!! You can click the next picture below or click on her name in the list below.