4th of July Birthday Card

 My friend Karen shares her birthday with the United States o America, so it's a great excuse to pull out the patriotic cardmaking supplies!

I always see a variety of patriotic designs offered by stamp companies, but...does anyone really send 4th of July cards? I can't imagine it. Still, I always end up buying more stamps and dies that I don't end up using because I love those designs.

That's why having a friend with a 4th of July birthday is a great excuse for using my stash!

Actually, though, my inspiration came from effort to use a different stamp set each day. The stamp set that day was...an alphabet set. What to do with that!?!

American flag card

I was stumped, but decided I should use a die for the image. Then I remembered that US Independence Day was coming up, and remembered that I had this flag die. 

Instagram knows my love of papercrafting, and for awhile they were sending me ad posts for Inlovearts, showing some really cute items. One die I purchased was this American Flag die. It cuts out alternating stripes and the field of "stars"--so I used white paper to cut it out, and then put the diecut on red paper. For the field of stars, I put white paper behind it. The field was cut out by the die, so I ink blended it to turn it blue.

Tilting the card gave me enough space on the card front to include both my friend's name and USA--and use those alphabet stamps! 

Here's a look at all of the materials I used (I actually remembered to take a photo this time!):

Materials used for card

In the left bottom corner, I've added a "how-to" reminder for myself on using that die, and I keep it stored with the die. I used to put notes like this on post-it note paper and write them with regular ballpoint pen. Now I write the note on acid-free paper and write it with a Micron pen. I'll talk more about it in a future post, but my background in museum studies and internship in an archive definitely plays a part in taking care of my materials.

Anyway, happy 4th of July! I wish you a wonderful day!