Beach Bound with Blog Candy

My sister and I, along with Cosmo and her dog Bella, are heading out to our family's beach house tomorrow for the 4th of July holiday. I've been busy tonight packing a bunch of SU! convention swap stuff to work on at night, or, worst case scenario, when the weather is crummy. I have some cards to post while I'm away, so if I can get a good enough internet connection--we only have dial-up at our beach house!!--I'll share them.

I made this quick card tonight amidst preparations for my (way too) short beach getaway. It's for Heather's challenge at Ribbons and Ink. She provided the sketch and a list of color combos to choose from. The sketch was a simple one to work with. I used Polka Dots & Paisley for the card. The dot background is heat embossed in Vanilla embossing powder. The color isn't very vanilla-y, but that's what the label on the container said . . .I like this image but I can't wait to get the new Polka Dot background--it was on my first order from the new Stampin' Up! catalog. The main image is the Polka Dots & Paisley flower with the round tab punch as an accent piece.

Now, here's the blog candy details. I have assembled a fun collection of goodies, including a bunch of star and summery themed stuff in honor of July 4th (ribbon, paper, star embellishments, bee stamps), an embellishable (is that a word??) little lunch box, some clear luggage tags so you can make a mini album as shown in a recently posted SCS tutorial, and some metal holiday embellishments.

To enter the drawing, all you need to do post a comment on this post. If you'd like to let me know what you like to see and you'd like to see more of (or less of) on my blog, you can let me know that as well. Lately I've spent a lot of time at work gathering feedback on what works and what doesn't (related to my job, of course), and I've been thinking that I haven't done that with my blog and that maybe I should.

I'll keep the blog candy contest open until Friday and then I'll have one of my family members select a winner at random from all of the commenters. Good luck!

Materials Used (All from Stampin' Up!):
Polka Dots & Paisley stamp set; Chocolate Chip and Bravo Burgundy Classic inks; Chocolate Chip, Bravo Burgundy, Kraft, and Confetti White cardstock; Versamark; Vanilla embossing powder; cream grosgrain; brad; round tab punch; sponge