We're Having a Heat Wave......

....A tropical heat wave. (come on, sing along!)  Ok, really, you don't have to; but whew was it HOT here today!  Before lunch we had already passed 80 degrees.  And by the afternoon; we were peaking around 87 -88 degrees!  Now for my crafty friends from the south; I'm sure that's nothing!  But for us northerners (is that even the proper term?), well anyway this is HOT - particularly for early May!  That's the kind of weather we expect in July & Aug!

So this all got me thinking about the summer.  And summer got me thinking about the next blog hop coming up for Sparkle N Sprinkle because we'll be celebrating the summer this time.  The Endless Summer blog hop is in two weeks.  So be sure to catch that one!

And to put you in the mood, I thought I'd share this simple but creative fun summer card I did a little while back for Sparkle N Sprinkle.  

I call this one "Bold Boards" which pretty much says it all.

(You're going to have to excuse the photo a little...couldn't seem to get the colors true to life without messing up the white or the whites to be just right without messing up the blacks.  It was giving me a little bit of grief, but you get the idea!)

So,the simple part of this comes from the fact that it's a relatively straight forward card.  The creative part comes from three different places.

First, not only did I want my boards to be bright & bold, but I also wanted them to resemble the shiny surface of real surf boards.  So I chose a material to stamp on that reflected that.  I decided to stamp my boards on crafters/sign vinyl to get the slightly shiny, painted wood look of real surf boards.  Pretty cool huh?!  You can buy some colors of this stuff in your local craft stores.  But I got these great bright colors off of ebay.  They worked perfect!  Actually, you can see a little bit of the shine/glare that you get on them at the top of the picture on the blue board.  But you'll have to take my word that they actually shine quite a bit more, but I purposely worked to keep some of the glare off the pic because it made it too hard to see!  So that was my big creative touch!

Second creative touch was my perfectly matched accent dots.  (If I should say so myself!)  I wanted some accents, but needed something that coordinated with the boards, but didn't take away from them.  So after I cut out the boards, I took the leftover scraps, attached them to leftover cardstock, and then punched out my accents.  Viola, perfect accent pieces!  (FYI, I attached the vinyl to paper first this time so they would be thicker, punch out easier, and also glue down better.)  With such bright boards, I thought these simple accents were perfect!

Last creative touch - a perfectly matched background.  I use a lot of light colors for my card bases because SNS displays their cards on a dark background.  But when I started putting this together, my first choice, white, just wasn't going to cut it.  So, I pulled out Copics that matched each board and made myself a perfectly matched colorful & crazy card base.  I think it's so fun!

And for a little extra creativity - nothing major here; but I went for a non-typical card size and did this card to fit a standard business #10 envelope.  It's a really fun size to play with every once in a while!  (I even did a second one with the same boards, same background, but a slightly different layout.  Just never quite finished the assembly.  But it was a neat look too!)

So there it is - simple, but creative!  I just love the look of those bright, bold colors alone.  But I had a lot of fun with the creative touches on this one too!  Sure hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!  And don't forget to mark your calendar for some more great summer fun with SNS's Endless Summer Blog Hop in two weeks! 

Until next time,

***Julie***

Supplies Used:

Stamp - Sparkle N Sprinkle

Ink  - Staz On Jet Black

Vinyl - Unknown

Markers - Copic