Celebrating the 4th of July/Canada Day at Emerald Creek Dares

Emerald Creek Dares are all about "4th of July" and "Canada Day" celebrations this month. This means bright reds against blue and white, stars and stripes or maple leaves and the Canadian flag's colours red and white on cards and tags or other paper crafts.

I admit I do not relate to any of these holidays - being the Austrian chick on the DT - but I DO know that working with bright colours and striking shapes like stripes and stars can be quite a challenge, because these all ask for strong composition and lay outs to fuse all the elements used on a format.

I struggled with this theme for quite a while and finally decided to tackle card making again. Those who know me, know that card making is something that scares hell out of me...but honestly I didn't have a clue what else to create for this challenge theme...so, please, be gentle with me and my card.

So here's my CAS (well, more simple than clean to be exact...lol) card, done using Chinese New Year, Steel Sapphire, Ultra Puff White, Ultra Thick Chunk Gloss Enamel and Glacier White Emerald Creek embossing powders alongside some washi tape, salty ocean and blue china Distress Inks and Tim Holtz's Alphanumeric Thinlits dies set.

There's not much to show or tell about the how-to. I used Tim Holtz's so-called Wrinkle-Free Distress Technique to create the blue background. Then I dabbed on some embossing ink through a stars stencil and heat embossed the stars with Glacier White embossing powder. The Calico Craft Parts MDF Star Shapes were heat embossed as well and glued in place using Tacky Glue.

To glue the heat embossed die cut letters in place, I used a special glue pen with a fine tip and tweezers. 

I wasn't too happy with the outcome and had several tries that went to the bin. So when my husband asked, when seeing the finished card in the evening, how on Earth I managed to create the shape of the United States with the Distress Inks, I felt a little bit reconciled. lol 

While preparing this post I already think of all the beautiful and well done cards I will be seeing around the internet and being entered to our Dare - and once more I know that I will deeply and sincerely admire all those creative and talented people out there who know how and are able to create truly beautiful cards. Know that I hold you in high esteem! 

And don't forget - by playing along you may well become our $25 voucher winner!!! 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx