June Blog Hop - Days of Summer

I can't believe its Blog Hop time again already ... the summer is flying by!!  This month's theme is the lazy days of summer.  In these parts (central Iowa) summer always means Freedom Fest!  This year's festival is particularly meaningful since last year downtown had 10 square miles flooded (yes, there were upwards of 21,000 people who had to be evacuated as the Cedar River crested at 31' and change - nearly double its flood stage.) We've been told it was the Midwest's equivalent to Hurricane Katrina.  We went way beyond the 500 yr flood plain even.  But Iowans are resilient and we had a modified Fall Fest last year.  While I was not personally affected beyond the inconvenience of not having running water for a few days, I know several people who lost everything.

This summer we've already had a Healing the Heartland weekend sponsored by Serve the City - a coalition of local churches (the Newsboys and Barlow Girl played a free concert!) and a Run The Flood 5K race to raise money for the continued recovery.  This year's Freedom Fest will be a blast just because we won't be defeated. We'll eat some great BBQ on the bridges and just have an all around good time.

Freedom Fest ends on the 4th and always mean flags and patriotic stuff all over the city and so I made a flag card using the new Vintage Picnic set from PTI.

I  started with a kraft base and used the gorgeous new Scarlet Jewel on the side.  I stamped stars from Star Prints in burgundy and added a bit of the bitty dot scarlet jewel ribbon to the card base as well.

For the focal layer I stamped the wicker basket (my personal fave from the set) and the stars and flag  bursting out the top. 

I colored all of the focal layer with my Copics

I also added a little C1 shadow to highlight it all.  I finished it off with some vintage wood buttons.

Thanks for stopping by ... enjoy the rest of the Hop!

{Happy 4th card supplies - all PTI unless noted}

Stamps: Star Prints, Vintage Picnic Baskets

Paper: Kraft, Scalret Jewel, Night of Navy (SU!) and NAturals WHite (SU!)

Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Burgundy (SU!)

Tools: Copics Sketch markers

Embellies: Scarlet Jewel bitty dot ribbon, vintage wood buttons