Hero Arts Congratulations for Paper Players #351

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday.

It's the fabulous Joanne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and she has a theme for us:

I chose to go with the "congratulations" choice.  In the UK it is customary to take a "gap year" between school and university and that usually entails a nice trip to wonderful (or maybe not so wonderful!) places around the world.  As my gap year was in Africa, I decided to showcase that with the Hero Arts card kit from June.   I LOVE this kit because of the theme and thought it was very appropriate for my congratulations card to my very, very much younger self. 🙂

I began with a piece of Neenah Solar White card stock and some distress inks.  I blended an early sunset onto the base of the card and then stamped the baobab and acacia trees onto the base.  I stamped the warrior onto a separate piece and fussy cut around him.  I stamped the grass onto another panel…. pity it doesn't go all the way across the card… but a black copic marker was the easy fix to fill in the missing area!   I mounted the "grass" panel onto fun foam and adhered that to the sunset base.  I then adhered my warrior onto the front piece and stamped the sentiment.

Here's my card:

I really do love this set and know that it will get lots of use in the future 🙂

I hope you will play along with us this week.  As usual, if you are looking for some inspiration, you have to look no further than our fabulous design team.  Mmm… the design team is a little different this week as we say a huge hello to Annie and Jen.  We so enjoyed having Valentyna and Crystal playing alongside us the last 6 months, and we are so excited to have Annie and Jen join us and that Deanne is staying on for another six months!

• Claire
• Joanne
• Laurie
• LeAnne
• Nance 
•  Sandy
•  Deanne
• Jan
• Annie

On a personal note:

Oh… the weather outside is…… gorgeous!   These are the halcyon days of summer in Minnesota.   Warm. sunny and not too humid.  GLORIOUS.  I so long for these days.  Somewhere between freezing cold and hot and humid as Hades!   They are few and far between – but I relish every single one of them.  Especially when they occur over a long weekend!

It doesn't matter how fabulous these days are, I still really enjoy spending time in my craft room – especially when I get to color and play with my pencils.  However……. Charlie also loves playing with my pencils.  Actually, he will play with anything on my craft table and consistently gets onto my table and distributes anything that is there onto the floor!   I videotaped him last week……

Warning… cuteness overload 🙂

My regular blog readers may remember that Charlie was hanging out on the corner of a road and 3 cornfields 20 miles from the nearest town when Lou discovered him.   He was just a little baby.   Charlie… the cat… not Lou :-)  Someone had dumped him there.  He was just a wee kitten.   Whoever dumped him had absolutely no idea what an amazing little cat he would grow into.  He is my constant companion and I love him dearly.  And…he knows it!

I love watching his little right ear…. it really tries to focus on the pencils under the holder… and when he drops the pencil on the floor… you can see him hesitate waiting to see what I say.  When I say nothing, he thinks… to heck with it… let me see if I can push the WHOLE thing onto the floor.

 He really is ….. a dreadful crafting companion…. but I love him dearly. 🙂

I'll be back with another card tomorrow.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee