Father's Day revisited

Today is another glorious day in GA. Why? We had more rain last night!!! I know friends in other states are rejoicing over the same thing, so I hope we can all hold our collective tongues about the ensuing humidity that comes along with said precipitation!

The card I'm highlighting today is one that I made following a sketch challenge put out by Beate Johns. If you aren't familiar with her work, you should be! Her blog is the one I visit daily because she's so inspiring. Click on Fresh and Fun to see more.

I was so thrilled at how this card came together! Stampin' Up! takes the guesswork out of coordinating colors, and I always look good! In this card, the base is Cool Caribbean, one of SU!'s 2006-07 In Color limited edition colors that's retiring at the end of June. The background designer paper is from a collection that was in our Winter Mini catalog. I hope it makes it into the new big catalog, which comes out in just 10 days. The main image "DAD" is stamped with Taken with Teal ink on Cool Caribbean. The small circle that says "you" and the horizontal band are made with Taken with Teal.

Technique Tip: The circle in the upper left corner is not a real metal tag, but one that I created. It's so easy--let me share with you how to make it.

• Choose a punch you'd like to make a tag with and a stamp sentiment or image that fits inside that punch. Set these aside. For this, I used a 1 1/4" circle punch, so my paper was 1 1/2" in width, but it was longer than that so I could hold it comfortably while heating the embossing powder. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
• Take the paper and cover the surface with Versamark ink. Versamark is what's called a watermark ink, which means it is clear and will produce a watermark look when stamped on colored paper. It's also sticky, so embossing powders cling to it wherever you put it, and that's what we need it for in this project!
  
• Coat the Versamarked area with embossing powder and shake off excess. Heat the paper with a heat tool until the powder melts. You can hold the paper with tweezers so that you don't burn your hands.
  
• As soon as it melts (do not overheat it), re-ink the surface with Versamark again, and re-coat with the embossing powder and shake off excess again. Heat until the powder just melts and repeat the entire process one more time.
• As soon as the final layer of powder is melted, quickly and firmly press your image/sentiment onto the paper and hold it there. You will be able to see that the stamp is making an impression into the layers of freshly melted embossing powder. Remove the stamp (this doesn't hurt the rubber at all!) and you have your faux metal tag! Punch with your chosen punch and you're done! I punched a hole using my 1/8" punch, and threaded a little accent ribbon through the hole.
  

I had this card made weeks before Father's Day, but with all the preparations I was making for a Stamp-A-Stack I was hosting last weekend, it wasn't until Friday that the card made it out in the mail! My parents were gone at my sister's for 5 days, so they didn't get their mail until Monday, and it was there in the stack! Sometimes, all the planets align!

Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by to take a look!