America: Home of the Free Because of the Brave

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I decided to share a patriotic-themed card with you today.  The stamped images are from PTI's Summer Friendship Jar Fillers and Flourishes' Patriotic Parade.  I colored the stars with a metallic gold pen and added gold Stickle dots here and there among the fireworks.  This card would work for any patriotic holiday. 

 

I hope we all remember those Americans who unselfishly gave their lives so that the rest of us can practice all our "inalienable rights"  which, it seems, are swiftly disappearing. I am from a family where three brothers were in various brances of the service and my hubs is a Viet Nam vet. 

 

It is my sincere wish that all Americans will "wake up" to what is happening in this country and do whatever you can to make sure our children and the grands can enjoy the same freedoms and rights we do now.  It could all be a dream in just a very few years unless each of us does our part to keep that from happening.

 

Enjoy!

Preserving The Berries

Another berry-themed card today!  Used PTI's Friendship Jar and Summer Jar Fillers.  I have a small collection of mason jars and love berries so this seemed like a fun card to do.  I heat embossed the lid and everything was colored with Copics (went out of the line on one berry....my bad).  The border is a Martha Stewart punch.

Art Journaling

This shows a page in my art journal--something I don't do very often but something I really enjoy.  The main image is a Prima girl stamp.  I used Dylusions for the background.  I had an old Monopoly card to add and a few other stamps and embellishments.  Thanks so much for stopping by.

An Old Favorite

This is another favorite image I like to use when I'm making cards for myself to send and I want them to be sort of "all occasion."  It's such a sweet image and vintage-y looking too.  I've done it in the past as a one color ink card and also stamped and then colored in the dresses.  This time I'm using paper piecing.  You stamp the whole image on your surface and then you stamp parts of the image on designer paper and cut out.  Mounted with dimensionals, it looks three dimensional.  I made five of these yesterday-all different.  I'll just show you two.

 I used mostly all scraps except for the card base.  And I also wanted to show you the envelope I made for the strawberry cards in the post below.  Those cards were 5 x 7.  The envies were made with the new Envelope Punch Board by We R Memory Keepers.  Such a breeze to make an envelope.  You can only make them up to a 6 x 8.5 size because that takes a 12 x 12 piece of paper.  But there are many small sizes.    If I had had a strawberry printed paper, a liner would have been great!

Strawberry Time!

Our fruit farms here will have strawberries to pick on or about May 30.  I can't wait.  I love them on cereal, over poundcake, in smoothies, or just out of my hand.  That's what I love best about summer is fresh fruits and veggies.  Until then, I used one of my favorite berry images to create this card.  The image is from Flourishes and if you search on their blog, they even have a tutorial on which Copic colors are used and how to do it.  I used Spellbinders Marvelous Squares to mount the image and then stamped a small strawberry and leaves for the sentiment from the same Flourishes set.  They look good enough to eat!

May Baskets

Many moons ago in a time of innocence and charm, people made May baskets to celebrate the beginning of this month.  I thought of a way to use the MS circle edge diecut I made in the post below.  I folded it in half, then in half in the opposite direction.  Creased all the folds well.  Stapled the center together with the ribbon.  I covered the staple with a Prima flower on each side.  I added some yellow pearl dots in each scallop.  I just filled it with a few azalea stems from the yard just for effect.  It could also be filled with candy, small toiletries, etc.  Would make a lovely Mother's Day gift as well.  Just one of the ideas I got from this new die!