Summer is coming!

I know I live in a warm place, but it was particularly warm and sunny this weekend. I decided a big warm sun would be central to my entry in this week's JustRite Stampers Friday Challenge. The sun shape plays well into my doily obsession, which is still going strong.

This week's challenge was to create and use your own stamped "designer paper." I masked and sponged liberally to create the layered look, and then created this fold-out card to make the doily hills really stand out.

Summer Is Coming!

To make the sun, I stamped a medallion from the JustRite's Kaleidoscope Medallions Set on yellow paper, and then added a very sun-like border from the Smile Set on top, aligned using my stamp alignment system for cheap people (picture of the "Stamp-a-ma-cross" in this post).  I cut it out with Spellbinders' dies,  Classic Scalloped Circles for the stamped image, and Lacy Circles (from a lighter yellow paper) for the outer layer.  I sponged the two die cuts with a dark and a light yellow ink respectively before adding the bling and assembling the sun.

Summer Is Coming detail

I used three shades of green paper to make the three layers of hills. I used wide borders from JustRite's Grandma's Doilies Set and Smile Set to stamp the hills, masking as necessary. JustRite conveniently makes their stamps match well with the Spellbinders Classic Circles and Classic Scalloped Circles, so I just punched out the masks with the Cuttlebug, rather than trying to scissor-cut nice smooth circles and scallops. After stamping an array of hills on each paper, I used my masks to cover the hill tops and sponge shadows into the valleys.

Summer Is Coming! detail

I love that I can write any sentiment that I want using the Justrite system. After my first fiasco (word to the wise: do not stamp the smallest font size with a glue pad), I have gotten quite good at setting the letter. The "designer paper" behind the sentiment is a sunny center from the Grandma's Doily Set. I cut it out and matted it using Spellbinder's Standard Circles and Beaded Circles, again sponging the edges with yellow to bring out the embossing.

Summer Is Coming! detail

I measured and cut and fiddled and fussed to get the card assembled just so. I think I learned enough doing it that my next fold-out card wont be so challenging, but this time, I'll just skip talking about that process.

Thanks for looking!