Flag Thanks

I am currently in the middle of making 25 AnyHero cards for a local scout troop, so they can write thank you notes to our overseas military heroes. I will be sending these on to Operation Write Home, as part of my final shipment of cards. (As a reminder, OWH is closing down operations, and will not be accepting card shipments after August 1, 2015. Any cards received after that date will be returned at the sender's expense. So if you want to donate, get those cards in soon!)

I decided to use the flag stamp from "Americana Blueprint" by Tim Holtz/Stamper's Anonymous. I inked up the stripes first with Versamark, then stamped that on a white cardstock panel, using my MISTI. I sprinkled on Zing Rouge embossing powder, and heat set that. Then, after cleaning my stamp well, I inked up just the star portion, and heat embossed that with Zing Blue embossing powder. (With my MISTI, I was able to get perfect placement of the second stamping. This would have been virtually impossible without this tool!) Because of the "open" design, this stamp is actually pretty easy to do that with, and I like the two-tone effect I got.

Since I wanted to keep this card simple, I used the "thanks" from Simon Says Stamp's "All Boy" stamp set, which is an outline image. I stamped that in Versafine Onyx Black ink, and heat embossed it with Recollections' Clear Detail embossing powder. Then I colored the letters in with red & blue gel pens. When that ink had dried, I coated each letter with Glossy Accents.

To finish the card, I matted my main panel with blue, then adhered that to a white A2-size card base.

I'm entering this card in Virginia's View Challenge #16: "100% Stamped."