Yesterday, I was inspired to celebrate our great country. I know this was brought on by the 4th of July being tomorrow as well as a gut reaction to all the negativity I see about our country in the media, political candidates and from certain professional sports "stars" who continually denigrate this country and its history. That's as far as I'm going to go with my political rant, at least on my blog.
Anyway, I love to celebrate the 4th of July! I remember incredible fireworks displays in my hometown that seemed to bring everyone together, late at night, after bellies full of burgers, potato salad and ice cream. In 1987, we had the ultimate celebration when we welcomed our second child into the world at approximately 10:30 p.m., while the fireworks were shooting off in all their glory! It never gets old to celebrate the USA and our daughter this time of year! I'm not sure what my day will be like tomorrow so I decided to post my patriotic projects today! Here they are:
My first thought was to do something sorta watercolor-y with the eclipse technique (die cut and raised letters), spelling something. I spent some time looking through current stamp sets and my eye caught this heavenly starry stamp in the "Stargazing" stamp set from the Annual Catalog. I originally got this to coordinate with the moon punch I already had but I also was a big fan of the cluster of stars in two of the stamps. I turned the stamp on it's end so it was vertical instead of horizontal and stamped on watercolor paper with, left to right, Real Red, Poppy Parade, Pacific Point and Night of Navy. Then, I lightly spritzed the piece with water. This brought out the richness of the color. I kept it flat so it didn't run. I wanted to still clearly see the stars and not smudge all the color together so I didn't go overboard with the water. As a tip, I also used some washi tape to tape my corners down so the watercolor paper wouldn't curl up at the edges when it got wet. After this dried, I spritzed it again, only this time with a mixture of Frost shimmer paint and alcohol. That gave the whole piece some wonderful sparkle. Then, I had to decide what word to try and die cut, using the "Hand-Lettered Prose" dies. I decided on the word "Free" as I thought it would fit best in the space I had. I considered "liberty" but decided that was probably too long. After cutting the letters, I carefully adhered some cut up dimensionals on the back and popped them up. I love this card and it was so fun to make, all with current product!
Here are my other two ideas!
For this card, I went for a vintage look with the darker colors of Cherry Cobbler and Night of Navy on a Crumb Cake background. Had you ever thought of using your Buffalo Check background stamp for flag stripes? The "remember" sentiment is from a retired set. I thought it worked well!
And finally, a birthday card! Again, I used all current stamps with some retired washi tape and paperclip stars. The Happy Birthday sentiment recently retired but I doubt I'll ever get rid of it - too handy!
I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July and join me in celebrating everything that's good, noble, honorable, remarkable, innovative and generous about our country.
Until next time,
Sarah
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