Happy Independence Day!

Our new challenge is up at How Much Is Too Much, and it's my turn to host the challenge. I called my challenge "Stars and Stripes" forever, and I'm asking players to use:

** elements that include STARS (embellishments, patterned paper, etc.) and STRIPES (ribbon, patterned paper, etc.)
** a flag or banner accent
** and to play off the date we're celebrating, July 4, 1776, use:

• 7 - brads
• 4 - four-word title
• 1 - photo
• 7 - labels
• 7 - seven-sentence journaling
• 6 - patterned papers

I also used this week's Color Combos Galore challenge:
 

I had this cheesy photo of my husband from last year's 4th of July printed and never scrapped it, so I thought this was a good chance to scrap it. I dug deep into my stash for some of the papers. That gray background paper is by Sweetwater (are they even still in business?). I've got some old Scenic Route paper on there, and the red stripe and tape measure print are also really old, from back when vintage was all the rage. Funny how styles come back--just like fashion (good thing I'm a packrat! That Hardware ticket behind my picture is also really old.

I wanted to use this My Mind's Eye star paper, but it was too vibrant for the CCG palette, so I thought of brushing white paint on it, and at the last minute, I spied the tub of gesso that I bought a year ago and wondered if that would do the trick, and it did! The turquoise paper turned into "Back in Time Blue!"

Here are some details... That kraft journaling spot is by Making Memories and is pretty old. I mounted it with pop dots so I could add the flags behind it. The die-cut accents in front of the journaling spot are by October Afternoon. The CCG Inspiration Board led me to add the "road trip" sign, but I thought it was fitting here because my husband is a trip, lol!

Here are a couple of the 7 requisite brads. That heart-shaped one is by Making Memories. It was from a Valentine set, but I thought it was perfect for this page. The small letter stickers are by Lily Bee.

You can see the brush strokes in this shot. The number paper at the top is by October Afternoon. I tucked a little 7 Gypsies sticker in between the layers. I got those pins from Michaels--a pretty big batch for just a couple of dollars. They were in the floral section and were called flower pins or something like that--I have no idea what their intended use was, but I thought they would be fun for my scrapbooks.

The "5&Dime" strip is a cut-off strip from the October Afternoon paper I used at the top of my page. I was needing a little somethingbeneath the picture, and that did the trick. The "Circus Peanuts" name of the paper seemed fitting for the picture, lol. There was a gap between the two phrases, so I was able to use some of the brads I needed to include for the challenge.

I've said this before, but I just recently started waiting a day before photographing my page to see if I my page feels "complete," and I'm often finding that I need to add just one or two more things to make it feel finished. I added the "76" (cut out of a Glitz Designs paper) and the asterisk sticker (from a really old Bookworks sticker sheet). If you scroll up and look at my page and try to imagine my page without these two addtions, you will see why my page didn't feel complete.

I hope you'll hop over to HMITM and see what the rest of the team did and play along with us and also visit CCG and see the new design team's beautiful creations.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and reading about my page!