A Perfect Day

Today I registered my oldest son for Sixth Grade.  My baby is now officially a Middle School-er.  I always get nostalgic at the start of each school year - he starts school in a week and a half.  I realize that we're riding the downward summer slope toward fall and colder weather.  And while I always get excited about all the fun activities and holidays that the end of the year brings, there is something that's pretty sad about the ending of summer.  I love the L-O-N-G days that we get in summer.  I love being able to watch my kids playing outside at 8:30 at night in the warm summer evenings, catching frogs and fireflies.  I love being able to take the baby on a neighborhood walk and show him all the evening creatures that come out to play.

I was asked to create the following card for the friend of a family member who loves the beach.  When I saw this lighthouse stamp, I didn't see a warm summer day playing in the surf.  I saw a summer sunset full of lingering memories.

I can't tell you how much I love how this lighthouse card turned out!

I used the card pattern from our Make It From the Heart how to program.  If you don't have this great booklet, you need to get it!  It's a 48 page booklet FULL of scrapbooking layouts and card patterns (with all the dimensions given).  These days my creative time is short and therefore even more precious to me.  Having go-to patterns and layouts really helps me maximize my time.

The first thing I did was stamp and emboss the lighthouse.  Then I stamped it out on Post-it notes so I could cut out around the stamp and layer the ink on the cardstock without ruining the lighthouse.  I started from the bottom of the lighthouse and layered the warmer inks - you can really choose any shades you want, I stuck with pink and peach toned inks.  The best thing to do (I've found) is to start with the lightest shade and finish with the darkest shade.  You don't have to clean your brayer between inks, which makes the blending process easier.  But when you switch colors or if you go from darker to lighter, you really need to clean your brayer (I just clean the ink off with a baby wipe).  Then when I was happy with the way the bottom of the sunset looked, I flipped the cardstock, cleaned off the brayer and layered the cooler shades.  To finish off the lighthouse, I used our blending pen and colored in the top of the lighthouse, the roofs of the keepers buildings and the grass/stone.  The blending pen really is great for coloring if you don't have the markers.  Then I used the pink and the yellow B&T papers from our retired Mayberry paper pack to frame the picture.

I love how warm and soft the finished card is.  Not that I've ever been, but this is sort of how I imagine a Maine sunset would look behind a lighthouse. 

I've entered this card in the H2H Water, Water, Water Challenge, Happy Campers Challenge #20 - Summer and Dream it Up's Summertime, Sparklers and S'mores Challenge.