Independence Day

I've heard of Christmas in July; what about Independence Day in October? I made this card for Justrite's Friday Challenge, "Three's Company." The challenge was to create a card with three coordinating patterns.

Let's Celebrate!

I used the Justrite Elegant Fronds background stamp and the Justrite Ticking Stripe background stamp to create my patterned paper. For one pattern, I stamped the Ticking Stripe stamp twice, at right angles, to make a grid, which came out very nicely. For all of them, I used distress ink, and before stamping, I misted the stamp with water. This makes the ink diffuse slightly, appearing more watery and not as crisp.

Following Beate John's tutorial on the Spellbinder blog, I cut two of the patterned papers into strips and wove them together, and then cut the resulting weave using Spellbinder dies, to make my frame. I used a Spellbinder border die to cut the blue edging, and sponged it to provide contrast. My sentiment is from Justrite Original Birthday Celebrations set (retired).

Let's Celebrate!

Here is the cut-out from the center of the frame, so you can see the weaving.

Neat idea to die-cut the woven paper. Thanks for another great idea, Beate! (Here is a link to Beate's amazing collection of tutorials. For even more, use the menu on the right in her blog.)