Simon Says Stamp’s Flickr Challenge #72 is all about summer and what it means to you!

Whenever I think of summer, I think of the sun and puffy white clouds against a bright blue sky. This card is a representation of all of that. This is one of two of my submissions for this challenge. For the other submission, please go to my post: Smile: The Sun is Out.

How I made the “Hello Summer” project:

1. Using watercolor cardstock, I used Distress Oxide inks to create a yellow/orange back ground using plenty of water. I did this by smooshing (a very technical term) Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade oxide inkpads onto a craft mat and spritzed water on the craft sheet until the colors beaded up. I then swiped the cardstock face down onto the colors, moving the cardstock until the cardstock was full covered with ink. I dried the cardstock with a heat gun and then swiped it onto the inked craft mat again, and dried the cardstock again. I repeated this process until I got the desired result. I added more ink or water as needed after each swipe.
2. The cardstock was then die cut using SSS’s Full Card Sunshine craft die. I saved the die-cut pieces and the negative space for the final assembly of the card.
3. Using another piece of watercolor cardstock and a cloud stencil, I colored the cardstock using a blending tool and Distress Oxide ink in Broken China to create clouds.
4. After the cloud background was finished, I laid the negative die cut piece from step #2 over the background and used it as a guide to properly place the sun and the sun rays onto the cloud background. I glued down each piece with a glue pen and lifted off the negative guide piece after everything was glue into place.
5. Next, the hello and summer dies were die-cut from turquoise cardstock.
6. The puffy cloud was cut from vellum using one of the dies from a nesting clouds die set.
7. For the assembly:

• The sun and sun rays were already adhered to the cloud background in step #4. This assembled piece was then cut down to around 1/8-inch on all sides.
• The die-cut “hello” and “summer” were glued to the vellum cloud using a glue pen.
• Sequins were adhered to the cloud using mini glue dots.
• Glue dots were adhered to the back of the vellum cloud behind the sequins and then the entire cloud piece was adhered to the card front.
• An A2-sized turquoise piece of cardstock was used as a mat.
• The mat and card front were adhered to an A2-sized, top folding, portrait-oriented  card base.

Supplies used in making this project:

Dies:

• SSS: Full Card Sunshine craft die; Painted Hello wafer die; Painted Summer wafer die.
• Hero Arts: Nesting Clouds Infinity dies.

Stencils:

• My Favorite Things: Stencil Clouds

Inks:

• Distress Oxide Inks in Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, and Broken China

Cardstock:

• Tim Holtz Watercolor Cardstock (card front)
• Stampin’ Up cardstock in Tempting Turquoise (mat)
• Neenah Solar White 110# (card base)