Fourth of July card

I come from a family that is very patriotic. I love my country, good or bad, and I'm so very proud of the men and women who serve it in the military. I know it's difficult for the families of all those service men and women especially on holidays so I wish all of you the most wonderful Independence Day.

What a great day for a 4th of July card! I went off the beaten path a bit with the color scheme and chose variations on the typical red, white and blue. Instead I used the ol' tulip, colonial white and twilight, doesn't have quite the same ring, I know! Now those of you who have been following my blog know that I do a lot of dry embossing to add texture to my cards. I bought a brand new corrugator this week and it makes really nice lines on my paper, a much faster way than using the dry embossing stylus and a trimmer. I also chose a different size card to play with, so here we go. (All measurements in inches).

Cut your first piece of tulip paper 8 x 3 1/2.

Pop that cardstock in the corrugator, squeeze the handle tight and slowly roll it through the machine.

When it comes out, use your sanding block and sand so that the white core comes through, this is one of the advantages of Close to my Heart paper, it's perfect to get that sanded, worn look.

Cut a piece of twilight cardstock 8 1/4 by 3 3/4 and distress both pieces with a sponge and twilight ink.

Glue the tulip piece to the twilight piece, right in the center.

Cut another piece of twilight 3 x 2. Cut a piece of tulip 3 x 1 /2. Distress. Attach the twilight horizontally about 2 inches from the bottom of the card. Move it flush with the left hand side of the card.

Cut a piece of colonial white cardstock 2 x 2. I used the July Word Puzzle stamp set on this one, use the words 4th of July and then distress and attach. FYI- I booked a party for myself and made over $350 in sales and that allowed me to buy all 12 Month Word Puzzles plus a holder for 1/2 price, something to think about!!

Stamp some stars on colonial white. You can see I experimented with several before choosing.

Cut out the stars and glue them on your card as shown (or however you want too, I'm all for everyone doing their own thing).

To add the sparkles I took a ruler and marked every centimeter up the card, those make great guides when you want your sparkles to be straight and even.

Attach the sparkles (ours are self-adhesive) up the side of the cardstock on your marked dots.

Stamp "Independence Day" on a strip of colonial white 2 1/2 by 1/2 inches. Distress.

Cut a piece of colonial cardstock 8 1/4 by 7 1/2, score in the center and fold, this is your card base.

With some tombow, glue the card front to the card base. Attach your "Independence Day" strip flush with the left side, about 1/4 down. Your card is done, have a great 4th of July!