Start of a Theme . . .

With Independence Day (and a long holiday weekend--yay!) coming up soon, you'll be seeing a few patriotic colored and themed projects this week. Here's the first one.

I used Mercy's sketch challenge to create this one. I really like this sketch--it's so versatile and easy to use. I thought it would look great with a big Prima flower or pretty much any kind of chipboard shape. I went with a big star. I mushed it in gold pigment ink to color it and after it was dry (or sort of dry--I'm not too patient . . .), I stamped one of the large star images from the Playful Stars set from Kitchen Sink Stamps over the gold in navy ink.

For the main panel, I thought about pulling out a scrap of patterned paper from my scrap pile, but then I decided to create my own patterned paper. I randomly stamped three different sizes of outline star images in red ink on red paper. I stamped a sentiment from Ready 4 Any Holiday on a scrap of blue cardstock and highlighted the word "sparkles" in the sentiment with a Stardust pen.

I found some red star patterned ribbon that coordinated nicely with the card's color scheme and images and wanted to figure out a place to add it. I squeezed it in by making a small tab under the left edge of the panel. A nice finishing touch!

It's started to thunder and is and threatening to downpour (again!) and Cosmo the crazy dog is beginning to panic. Must head off to deal with him now so he doesn't eat anything else . . .

Materials Used:

Playful Stars and Ready 4 Any Holiday stamp sets (Kitchen Sink Stamps); Galaxy Gold pigment ink (Brilliance); star brad (Making Memories); ribbon (Michaels Americana Collection); clear Stardust pen (Sakura); Real Red and Night of Navy Classic inks, Real Red, Brocade Blue, and Night of Navy cardstock, chipboard star, pop up glue dot (Stampin' Up!)