Patriotic Card for BTF #47B

Hello, crafty friends!  We are in the second week of our "Favorite Thing About Summer" theme at the Between The Folds Bi-Weekly Challenge Blog.  I had several ideas I was playing around with for this theme but a touching project and video were pointed out to me last week and I knew I had to share my version as well as pay tribute to the card maker and her inspiration.  Let's get started!

First off, I want to pay tribute to my inspiration for this project, Michelle Wright.  She is an SU Demonstrator and, more importantly, a Gold Star mom and I urge you to take a few minutes to watch her video all the way through.  For my Close To My Heart version, I used Sapphire and Cranberry inks with the Brushstrokes stamp set to create this flag image on White Daisy cardstock.  I then used the Stars Thin Cuts and white glitter paper to create the star.  I used a retired stamp set "A Thousand Thanks" and Sapphire ink to stamp the sentiment in the slightly darker area of the longer "stripes" where I had to overlap my stamping, which I am hoping gives a highlighted effect to the words.  So simple but very visual, and a very powerful message of thanks to the men and women who protect our country and our freedoms - and the families who sacrifice so much to support their loved ones who serve!

Summer can a very busy season, full of many of our favorite holidays and happenings.  I hope you will find time to share a project inspired by your favorite thing about summer and share it with us at BTF this week.  As always, your project needs to include some CTMH product(s) and you have until 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time/10:59 pm Central to share your project HERE.  Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

First time entry for Craft Your Passion challenge blog

Good morning, all!  I am a big fan of fall and while I have enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather we've had so far this month, I have to admit I'm ready for a few crisp evenings and the upcoming holiday season.  So when my daughter requested a card for a college friend who prefers a spring palette, I found it a little challenging to switch gears.  I also wanted to come up with something especially pretty as this young woman is an art major, but after a few days' thoughts I finally came up with something I'm pleased with.  Plus, I got to ink up several stamps I hadn't used yet as well as break into a new paper pack, AND this will be my first entry over at the Craft Your Passion challenge blog (where the theme is always 'anything goes') so this project was a win-win-win for me!


details:  All products are from Close To  My Heart.  I used patterned paper and cardstock from the Kaleidoscope kit which features Pear, Canary, Pixie, and Gypsy.  One of the papers has this pretty striped pattern which starts out green, transitions to yellow and then to pink.  I love playing lines against curves so I rounded the corners on each of the layers/banners and chose a sentiment stamp, Wavy Blooms, that features cursive writing.  The small butterfly images are from a set called Your Own Kind of Wonderful.  I used this set again for the sentiment on the inside of the card which I positioned within one of the images from the Frame Flair set.  This stamp set is Cricut compatible but I chose to fussy cut it this time because I wanted the stamped image to be as close as possible to the edge of the paper since I was using tone-on-tone.  I used the rock and roll stamping technique for the butterfly in the corner, and that stamp is from the retired Brushstrokes Workshop On The Go set, which lends itself really well to the colors and patterns in the Kaleidoscope kit.


I think that's it!  Happy crafting, Annette