Light It Up Blue Blog Hop for Autism Awareness

I'm thrilled to be participating in today's Light It Up Blue Blog Hop for Autism Awareness blog hop. I'm a kindergarten teacher and over the course of my career, I've worked with a number of children with autism and the elementary school where I currently work houses a prekindergarten program for autistic children, so I've had the opportunity to learn firsthand about autism.  I've also had the pleasure of seeing children with autism make great strides and flourish over the course of a school year with the support and guidance of educators and their families. Our school will be marking World Autism Day today by having everyone wear blue to school to in recognition of the event.

Today's blog hop has so many fantastic sponsors and participants that have shown their support for Autism Awareness and you can see the complete list HERE.  If you would like a chance to win a prize from one of these fabulous companies leave a comment on this blog, and any of the other blogs participating in today's hop! Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced on Monday April 6.

Now here is the card I created for today's hop! I incorporated the day's blue theme into my card by using several different distress inks to make a gradient night sky.  The inks were sponged over a silver embossed sentiment from the WPlus9 Lucky Stars stamp set.  I masked off part of the sentiment before stamping it in silver ink, then heat embossing.  After inking the panel, I cut it apart and adhered it to a navy card base, leaving a slight gap between the two pieces.  The gap was filled in with a narrow strip of silver paper.  I accented the sentiment with a trio of sparkly silver sequins.

After assembling the card, I went back and drizzled a bit of Bahama Blue irRESISTible texture spray over the inked panels.  If you haven't tried the irRESISTibles line yet, definitely check it out.  The colored spray adds a fun texture to your designs.  It comes in a spray applicator, but I took the applicator out of the bottle and gently flicked it to get the bigger spots and dots you see here.  I'm usually pretty hesitant to add random elements like this, but I decided this card needed a little something more and I'm glad I gave the spray a go.

Materials Used:
Lucky Stars stamp set (WPlus9); Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Salty Ocean, and Faded  Jeans distress inks (Ranger); Delicata Silvery Shimmer ink, Bahama Blue irRESISTible texture spray (IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko); Night of Navy cardstock (Stampin' Up!); silver paper (Target); silver embossing powder (American Crafts); silver sequins