Swimming in the Tropics for Operation Write Home's Memorial Day Bloghop

Welcome to this stop on Operation Write Home's Memorial Day Bloghop 2011. This is my third year participating...thanks so much for joining us in celebrating!!! Our family is so proud and grateful for all of our men and women serving in the armed forces. My brother-in-law was deployed to Afghanistan in April. So we are keeping ourselves busy making cards and sending care packages.

I have gone TROPICAL with this "Miss You" card. My "LITTLE Sister" was married Christmas of 2009 in Hawaii and is now officially part of Hawaii's Army National Guard unit. Since this is a 5 x 7 card, I mounted it to foldout pocket card that I stitched pages into. I sent this off to my Lil' Sister so she can write a special something to send to her hubby overseas. We actually got to spend Christmas with them and our whole family this past Christmas in Chicago. I describe more in length about this card later in the post...


My Little Sister is 10 years my junior and nearly a foot taller than me. This photo is from her deployment ceremony that was in Fort Lauderdale last January. A last minute surprise and change of plans by her unit -AND- it was so wonderful I was able to see her off from where I live.

**BLOG CANDY** I will be having a RAK giveaway of goodies from comments left between now and June 1st. Good luck!!!

Keep on hopping! The next stop is
with Laura at Scrappin' Daphne

Have a happy & safe Memorial Day Weekend! If you have ended up here in the middle of the hop, click Operation Write Home Memorial Day Bloghop to get back to the top of the hop!!!

{{ artful hugs }} : ) Sb

ABOUT THE CARD...

I have recently joined the Design Team over at Unscripted Sketches. This is one of my favorite creations to date using Sketch it Saturday's sketch #106. I have been excited to use this Stampendous "Sushi Bowl Party" stamp set I got on clearance, and have left it out on the dining room table to remind me & this sketch was the perfect use. I combined this with flourishes from a tropical stamp set and sentiment from a dollar stamp set from one of the craft stores.

I stamped the fish bowl on patterned water paper and added more depth with markers blended with water brush pens. I also stamped images on recycled film {acetate} with Staz-on and colored the flourish with marker. I layered this on top of the blue fishbowl for depth. Between the layers is a fish and heart on hook from the same "Sushi Bowl Party" set. I added black embroidery floss coming out of the bowl to the top of the card.

The pineapple patterned paper is Basic Grey and is so fun and tropical. The stamped flourishes are accented with pink marker. This card just screams "PINA COLADA"!!!

SalonDArte at upcoming event June 2, 2012

SalonDArte will be at the Dada Bazaar on June 2nd at Dada Restaurant in Delray Beach, FL. To keep up with Dada Bazaar events click here. See you there!!!