Thank you

I asked my brother the other day if he and his wife would be willing to participate in Operation Write Home's campaign to collect thank you cards for our overseas military heroes. I offered the cards, if they would just write messages in them and mail them. He enthusiastically said to count them in! So this is one that I made for them to send in to OWH.

I am also participating in Online Card Classes' "Watercolor for Card Makers" class, and one of the lesson themes was watercolor backgrounds. I created this background following the lead of Agnieszka Malyszek, one of their guest instructors. I colored bands of 4 different blues with my Inktense pencils on a piece of watercolor paper, and an amber color at the top and bottom. Then I went over that with a brush and clear water to blend the colors. (I had done the same thing with different colors on this card, but I think it came out better this time.)

For the focal piece, I used the largest die from this Spellbinders die set and cut it from double-sided patterned paper from My Mind's Eye "Blue Floral" 6x6" pad. I folded & tucked the pieces in the die cut, and then glued it to the watercolor panel. I stamped this greeting in Versamark on the flip side of that patterned paper, and heat embossed it using Recollections "Snow" embossing powder. Finally, I die cut that with a Spellbinder's Classic Circles die, and glued it to the center of the large die cut.

I adhered the watercolor panel to an A2 card base, and rounded the 2 right-hand corners with my 1/2" Corner Chomper. So there it is--a simple, masculine thank you card to send to one of our overseas heroes!

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Die Crazy" challenge.