HAPPY 250th BIRTHDAY, USA!

Hello, all, I'm pleased to be officially at Simply CAS Challenge as a new Design Team member! CAS is really my favorite technique, so I'm looking forward to this.

Simply Clean & Simple: July 2026 - Birthday

Darlene has selected the optional theme for July as "Birthdays" and I wanted  to highlight July 4th as the 250th birthday for the US (hoping we can survive this year). 

 The only element of this card that is remotely current is the sentiment from Hero Greetings "Messages for cardmaking" - everything else is quite old because I haven't purchased any July 4th supplies for several years. The cupcake is from I don't know who. The sparkler is from an old PTI set. I started with a white card base and matching die cut stitched panel. I stamped the cupcake in dark blue on the card base and colored the flag with marker. I die cut a rectangular opening in the top panel, stamped the sparkler and sentiment, and lined the opening with dark blue cardstock. The top panel was attached with dimensional foam.

I do hope you will join us each month to play with CAS technique - and check out what the rest of the team has created to inspire you!

RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

Usually about this time in the year I start thinking about 4th of July cards. The last couple of years I've found myself too busy between trips out of town and all of the summer activities to discipline myself to make 30 cards. So I'm not really sure I'll be carrying through on this - and to be completely honest, I don't think we Americans have much to celebrate this year. I'll just leave it at that.

I was inspired by a couple of challenges - Color Throwdown#832 and CAS Colours & Sketches #560.

I started with a white card base and a stitched rectangular top panel. I stamped an old PTI fireworks image with light blue ink and over-stamped the sentiment from Hero Greetings #CM495 in dark blue. I cut our 4 1-1/2" squares from blue star and red & white stripe paper and mounted them above the sentiment. I matted the stitched panel with dark blue card stock, added a silver sequin star and pale blue gem stone, and made a coordinating envelope.

These are the challenges that inspired me:

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Challenge #832

CAS Colours & Sketches: Challenge #560 - sketch

HAPPY FOURTH!

Hello, all! It's a long 4th of July weekend here in the US and I really had to scramble to get my July 4th cards out this year. And as it was, I didn't get them out to all of my mailing list - mostly family members. A couple of the challenge blogs popped up this week with challenges that were appropriate for me to enter with this year's card - Tic Tac Toe Challenge #168 and Color Hues #44 - "Playing Cards with a Friend". 

For this year's card I started with a rectangle die-cut from white 110 lb. cardstock that I stamped and heat-embossed with navy embossing powder - the fireworks image is from PTI's "Red, White & Blue" and the sentiment was found on their "Birthday Bash Sentiments". After these were stamped and embossed, I die-cut the wine glass from Sizzix Tim Holtz #664435 "Happy Hour". I fitted the die for the wine onto a patterned paper to make it look like the American flag and added die-cut umbrella and cherry. I matted the rectangle with navy cardstock, mounted it to a side-folded card, and lined the envelope with the same paper.

For the Tic Tac Toe Challenge, I chose the bottom horizontal line - Any Shape Die/Fireworks/Sentiment.

 TTTC168 - Featured Designer Felicita - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

Added July 9, 2022:

Color Hue's #44 "Playing Cards with Friends" challenged us to use the colors red and blue and add stars and/or stripes:

Color Hues: Color Hues #44- Playing Cards with Friends (colorhuesthecolorchallenge.blogspot.com)

(I couldn't manage to capture the little red and blue blinkie)

Added July 16, 2022:

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

I just finished my 4th of July cards and have them all ready to send out starting tomorrow. I made an edition of 27 this year and used the same design that I created here for Freshly Made Sketches #482. But in the interest of ease, and so it wouldn't cost so much to mail, I decided to simplify the card by eliminating the dimensional foam.

I usually sign and date the back of all of my cards. I've been tossing around the idea of having a custom stamp made with my blog address but haven't done that yet. If anyone knows of a good source, please pass it on! In the meantime I usually stamp a small image that relates to the season and sign and date. this one is a tiny little cupcake that I've had for years that I stamped in PTI's "Blueberry Skies" and colored in the red stripes with a felt-tip pen.

We're going into this weekend with record-breaking temperatures - it's supposed to get up to 112 on Sunday! COVID-wise, here in Oregon things seem to be finally getting back to normal. The governor is lifting all of the old restrictions when Oregon reaches 70% vaccination levels or June 30th, whichever comes sooner. This is really good news for my son who owns a restaurant. He's been struggling with trying to cope with a 50% occupancy ruling. During the periods when his restaurant had to close he used the time to study and take the real estate test so he is now licensed as a realtor if he has to have a fallback position. 

Well, I hope everyone stays cool this weekend!

STARS & STRIPES

It probably seems silly to be thinking about my 4th of July cards already, but when I saw Karren's CAS sketch for Freshly Made Sketches #482 it looked like the perfect opportunity to utilize this layout for stars and stripes. Plus, starting my cards this soon means I won't end up in a crunch at the last minute. While I made the custom envelope for this initial card, I'll probably purchase blue or white #10 envelopes and line them with red stripes.

This card was made by first cutting and mounting a strip of red and white striped printed paper from my stash and stamping the sentiment from PTI's "Red, White & Blue" set with their "Enchanted Evening" dye ink. Then the only thing left was to overlap the stars die (don't remember whose it is), cut it out from the face, and layer it for dimension. Then this was all mounted to a folded slim-line card, slipping a small piece of blue cardstock underneath the open star - very easy and CAS. 

We're looking forward to a moderately normal July 4th celebration this year, since all of our extended family members (except the children) have now been vaccinated. My son and his family usually take their annual vacation around the 4th of July and they always reserve a cabin, a year in advance, at one of  our local lakes. We all gather on that day and stay for the evening fireworks display put on by the lake resort. 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #482 - A Sketch by Karren

Added April 27, 2021:

July 4th and Freshly Made Sketches #393

I've been struggling the past couple of years with new ideas for the 4th of July cards I send to all of our family and friends. How many potential design options are there for stars and stripes and red, white, and blue? I haven't purchased any new stamps, paper, or dies for this holiday for a couple of years, so I feel like I'm in a design rut that I can't seem to break out of!

 

Using the design layouts in the challenges is helpful, so I played along with Freshly Made Sketches this week. I'm not sure if I will use this for this year's card edition but I'm running out of time.

 

 

Rubber stamps for both the Declaration of Independence signatures

and the Statue of Liberty are older ones from Stamp Francisco. The stars

die is one from my stash, manufacturer unknown. Inks are PTI "Spring

Rain" and "Enchanted Evening".

 

https://freshlymadesketches.blogspot.com/2019/06/freshly-made-sketches-393-sketch-by-lee.html