Celebrations

Celebrations

The Paper Players challenge this week is a Theme challenge "Celebrations".  #PP400

My card design for this Theme Challenge is photographed below.

So for my Theme Challenge card design 'Celebrations' I was thinking what Celebrations mean to me.  At all celebrations I can remember even from a small child there has always been balloons of all different sizes and colours.  Now they used to have to be blown up using a lot of puff!  Normally, you know by whom as they are sat out of breath and with bright red cheeks in the corner of the room surrounded by balloons.  Then came the balloon pump, an ingenious device that you popped the end of the balloon over the end and you pumped and pumped and pumped.  If you didn't remember to hold onto the end of the balloon as well it would tend to pop off when it got too big and fly and around the room at a great speed sending every child in the facility screaming!  Those who worked with these didn't have red cheeks but they certainly had an arm that hurt for a long while after.  But now we have helium balloons, also with fabulous weights too.  These can be blown up at the shop where purchased or you can even purchase the helium tank as well (so, so dangerous!)  Especially where Dads are concerned, I am certain more helium goes into their mouths than into the balloons which is why more than one tank is normally necessary.  But this does make for funny videos though.

I digressed sorry.  I found a light blue ready-made card base in my craft stash and I die cut the largest rectangle die I could that would fit onto the card front.  This left a thin frame.  I adhered this frame directly to the card base front with wet glue and the stitched frame I popped up on foam pads to create dimension and depth.  

Then using the Stampin' Up stamp set 'Hand Delivered' I stamped in STAZON ink the balloons, the skirt and legs, then the stripes on top of the plain skirt.   I then used the new Stampin' Up In-Colours (Lovely Lipstick, Grapefruit Grove, Pineapple Punch, Call Me Clover and Blueberry Bushell) with my Aqua pen to give colour to the balloons, her blouse, her skirt and her shoes.  I used the Blueberry Bushell to add a shadow around the whole image.  The only additional colour ink I used was Powder Pink for her legs.  I cut a piece of Whisper White card stock to (4 x 5 5/8") and adhered this inside the stitched frame.  I then adhered the image (when dry) with wet glue into the centre of this white card stock.  

To give the balloon depth and make them shiny I added Glossy Accents to each of them and then left this to dry totally.  On my Big Shot I die cut the sentiment 'Big Hugs' 4 times, 3 in white card stock and 1 in the scraps left over from cutting out the frames.  These were adhered together with wet glue one on top of each other with the coloured one on the top.  I adhered these with wet glue to either side of the image.  When the Glossy Accents was completely dry I added high-lights on the balloons with my white gel-roll pen.  To complete my project, I stamped the sentiment 'Happy Mail' on the front of the envelope along with the image of the duckling delivering the mail.  This helps the recipient of my card know that they are not getting a bill!

If you have enjoyed my blog post, please leave me some feedback.  Thank you I really appreciate you taking the time to come to my blog page and looking at my latest project.  

Till next time, keep crafting!

Lorraine

:O)