A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining,
the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing,
and the lawn mower is broken.
~James Dent
I know, I'm jumping the gun; it's still mid-May. Why would I want to rush into a hot Texas Summer? I haven't lost my sense of time entirely, I'm just really liking this Summer Picnic designer paper (page 16 of he Occasions mini catalog). So, put on your sunscreen . . . here's my tribute to a leisurely summer picnic.
This is a Double-Pocket card - here's the inside.
It will be so much fun to give to someone with a gift card attached to the paper clip. When I find a good occasion, I'll stamp a sentiment on the tag and sign it.
I followed Lynn's tutorial for the Double Pocket card, here: Tutorial Tuesday - Double Pocket Card (thanks Lynn). Lynn started her card with a 8-1/2" by 8-1/2" square sheet of paper. I made two cards, one with a 12" by 12" sheet and another with a 10" by 10" sheet. The size of the initial sheet isn't that critical so long as it's an even square size.
The seed packet is an adaptation of Kathryn's seed packets at Katydid Creations. You can download her templates for making the seed packets, here: Seed Packets. You can tell I love playing with her templates (see Where Do Snowman Come From and Seeds of Friendship.) I just ran her strawberry seed packet template through the printer with Whisper White paper and again on the Summer Picnic (blue dotted) designer paper, and cut them out, cutting out the window only on the blue designer paper.
You can find a tutorial for making the shaker box here: Shaker Card. If you click on my picture to get a bigger image, you can see I did some reverse masking using Bashful Blue pastels. There's a tutorial for that here: Faux Postage. (What would we do without Beate to guide us with her incredible tutorials?) I used the lovely swirls from the Priceless stamp set on top of the masked pastel square. To make the strawberries more delicious, I stamped them from the Tart & Tangy stamp set in Real Red craft ink on Whisper White paper and embossed them with iridescent ice embossing powder. I stamped them again with Old Olive ink on Old Olive paper and cut out the stem to lay over the red berries. The beads are our green glass bead mix. With my seed packet done, I placed it on layers of Real Red, Old Olive, and Bashful Blue cardstock.
For the inside pockets, I used our 3/16" corner round punch to make the scallops between the pockets. To make the flower embellishments, I used the 5-petal flower punch and boho blossoms punch in the designer paper and sponged some ink along the edges. I made the center of the flowers by using our 1/2" punch to punch out circles from the designer paper, and assembled them with our build-a-brads. It's so much fun to have brads that match the paper! The ribbon is our Real Red striped grosgrain ribbon.
The big paper clip bookmarks are a a lot of fun and easy to make. There's a tutorial here: Paper Clip Bookmark. Basically, mine are just two layers of cardstock punched out with our scallop punch, embellished with my make-shift flower, and sandwiched with a large paper clip (from the office supply area of Walmart). I've found in the past that it's hard for the sandwich to stay glued together, so this time I used a combination of crystal effects, poppin' dimensionals and red sticky tape - these suckers are not going to fall apart.
Shew . . . are you exhausted following all of that? There's almost three projects for the price of one: the shaker card, double-pocket card and paper-clip bookmark. Gracious . . . time for the summer hammock, huh.
Well, before you hit the hammock, I have to share the latest from my daughter in Hong Kong. She can only write or call us about every other day, and this was in her e-mail this morning.
. . . Today was my favorite so far though, we headed into Macau, about an hour long Jet-Ferry ride (like a super-fast ferry that's decked out like a plane). Macau is the center for gambling and actually surpassed Vegas last year in revenue. It used to belong to Portugal but was given back to China just recently, it's called an S.A.R. (special administrative region). Anyway, that's where I bungy jumped the Macau Tower (the 10th tallest building in the world and the highest bungy jump in the world)!! I almost backed out but I had to remind myself that you only live once!! It was amazing, 4 of the other girls did it too so we've kind of been established as the A-Team of the trip! haha! I have a video of it, certificate, and a CD full of pictures just in case anyone doesn't believe me! In the meantime, here's the website for the tower, Macau Tower, check it out! pretty nuts! . . .
