Welcome back everyone! Whether you're a longtime reader or coming here for the first time from the amazing Anna, I'm excited to see you!
My fellow Squirrlz and I have had a busy summer, so we all decided to take a couple of months off. But we are back with a new challenge! We decided this month we wanted to close out the season with a theme focused on summer or travel and we wanted to incorporate die cuts! I absolutely LOVE travel and knew I would have a wealth of supplies to choose from! So what did I do?
I used NONE of them! I know, I know: what's wrong with me? Well that list is endless and we don't have that kind of time, so let's just cut to the easy answer for this, which is I had an idea pop in my head and I couldn't shake it.
I seem to be rather nostalgic these days and one thing I seem to endlessly associate with summer is a rich, deeply colored sunset. Traveling or not, I remember sitting outside with my grandparents watching the sky roll through this magnificent spectrum, the light slowly fading and forcing everything into a silhouette. Pulling from some of my favorite memories, I ink blended a 5.5" x 4.25" card front with my current sunset go-to: distress oxides in Seedless Preserves, Victorian Velvet, stampin up Mango Melody, and Distress Squeezed Lemonade. I then die cut the Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlit Flower Field for the silhouette. A quick sentiment stamp of "Explore Nature" (a favorite travel hobby of mine) from the Simon Says Stamp Nature set, and this theme was on lock.
Now of course this would have been plenty, but it wasn't long before I started thinking about another favorite trip with my grandparents that had a long impact on my memory. We'd gone as far south in Louisiana as we could, all the way down to Grand Isle. It hadn't been ravaged by any hurricanes in a long time and was looking good. It was relaxed, the food was delicious, and going swimming in the Gulf was heaven! I remember being so amused by the various witty hotel names along the shore and the faded paints that had obviously been incredibly vibrant at one time. My grandparents bought a Grand Isle t-shirt for me with a circle in the center showing an island paradise, complete with sailboat and palm trees. For some reason, I was hooked on drawing that imagery and practiced drawing it over and over. So when I remembered that I had a palm tree stamp I could die cut out, I couldn't see how I could resist recreating this image again.
First I stamped the palm tree from The Hero Arts December 2017 Monthly Hero kit twice (this is the one with the Arabian Nights theme). I die cut them out. Then I took a card panel and ink blended that same sunset again (with a touch of Stampin Up Wasabi at the bottom). I cut out a circle to let the sunset show through, stamped some birds flying into the sunset, then glued down the palm trees. I finally added the "Summer Paradise" sentiment (from an unbranded set I got at Michael's) and added a few enamel dots (Waffle Flower Crafts JJ's Rainbow). I love it!
Ok, so I could have definitely been done now EXCEPT... I have been seeing the cardmaking trend of taking a shape such as a circle, cutting it into strips, and adhering it to the card front with foam tape, making them float above the surface. I loved the look, but it also made me think of the designs I saw a lot in the 80s of a sun setting and being drawn into these lines. There were usually palm trees around it and maybe a Delorean driving into this futuristic sunset. And, well, I already had the palm tree stamp and die out. And the inks. And the circle I'd die cut from the previous card. And all this nostalgia for my 1980s childhood memories. So you know what they say: in for a penny, in for a pound! And that's how I made this card!
Used those same inks to blend a condensed sunset onto the circle. I then trimmed the circle into progressively thinner strips. As I predicted, when I laid it out with some space in between, it became more of an oval. No problem: I left some of the bottom strips off so it still looked like a circle, but also looked like a sun setting below the horizon. I mounted each strip on some foam tape, edged each piece in gold ink, and arranged on the black card front (also edged in gold ink). I arranged the palm trees over the sun, then stamped the sentiment beneath (from Papertrey Ink's What the Doodle Map Set, a perfectly good travel-related set that I could have used and did not). I placed a glittery gold dot on either side to help emphasize the sentiment and proceeded to cue up an 80s soundtrack (probably).
Thank you for stopping by and reading my agonizingly long treatise concerning my summer memories! Be sure to keep hopping! The Squirrel Squad is a small group so the hop won't take you long,but will leave you feeling totally inspired! Next up: the marvelous Marie!! If you love what we're doing, please leave a comment! We love it even more when you subscribe!