Dare To Be Sketchy

Happy Tuesday! Today I'm back with the card I promised you yesterday. It's my sample card for the Verve Stamps sketch over on the Stampin Out Alzheimer's site. Have you joined the site yet? I'm just blown away by how many challenges and prizes there are! It's so heartwarming to see the way the stamping community gives back. Alzheimer's support is a cause dear to my heart. A few years ago my grandfather passed away while suffering from Alzheimer's. Watching his decline was so devastating. Did you know that every 70 seconds someone develops Alzheimer's? That means that while you're reading this blog post several moms or dads or brothers or sisters' lives are going to be irrevocably changed and a lifetime of memories will start chipping away. I do what I can to support Alzheimer's awareness and research in the hopes that one day we will find a cure and everyone's memories will be safe and secure.



Okay, so that's my little soapbox for the day. Now onto the sketch and card. There are a few of the new release Verve sets up for grabs for participating in the Verve Stamps sketch challenge over on the SOA site. I absolutely love this sketch and have already used it twice. I hope you enjoy it too!

My card uses the new Up, Up and Away and Dare To Be You sets. When I designed the balloon set I was really inspired by those fabulous old balloons of yesteryear, so I decided to go with a vintage feel for my card. So I started with cream cardstock, which always seems to add some warmth to a vintage look. I stamped the balloon in Vintage Photo Ranger Distress Ink, then stamped the clouds. I stamped both of these again to color and paper piece over the stamped image. Then I added all sorts of sponging with the Vintage Photo ink. For the large panel I used the fleur de lis border punch from EK Success and then I made a little accent by gluing three fleur de lis punches together for the corner piece, accenting the top one with a white gel pen. The red strip and the dotted papers are from Crate Paper. I embossed the red with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and then sanded off the dots. The sentiment is from Dare to be You and I finished off with some brown and cream polka dot ribbon.