Happy :) and Sad :(

Aloha, all!

     I have two good friends who live in East Hawai'i who have decided to move back to the mainland.  They both have everything in place.  One will be moving while I'm away for the Stampin' Up! Convention and a family vacation next month.  The other will not move until the end of the summer.  I am so happy for both of them that they are able to do what they want to do.  Yet I'm very sad for me because I'm going to miss them so much.

     What I'm trying to do is to look at this whole experience as something new!  It will be new for me as I will (eventually) have a new next door neighbor, and I will be working with a new president of a club to which the other friend and I belong, and of which she is now the president. 

     And it just so happens that the Late Night Stampers Yahoo Group design challenge for this week is, "New Beginnings."  What better way to help my friends celebrate their new beginnings that creating a card for them to use to announce their new addresses!  I have to tell you that, even though there's tons of new stamps in the new Stampin' Up! catalog, this oldie-but-goodie set is one of my favorites – and so versatile!  There are two sets of accessories for the basic stamp set, which has lots of accessories of their own. 

     The basic stamp set is Loads of Love, and the pickup truck itself is in that set.  The truckload full of furniture, the woman in the driver's seat, and the "just moved" greeting are in the set, Loads of Love Accessories.  So cute, and just perfect for today's card!

     At the time that I was making this card, I did not have any designer series paper that I really felt was right for the background for this card.  So I just took the "just moved" stamp and, using both the Bashful Blue and Calypso Coral colors, stamped all over the front of the basic card.  Then I added the various layered elements.  To give this whole card a bit more of the rustic look that goes with a pickup truck, I sponged the edges of the card itself and several of the layers with some Bashful Blue ink.  The paper that I used for the card and the stamped layer is Confetti White, and that adds nicely to the rustic look.

     The punches that I used for the circular element are the 1-1/4" Circle Punch for the stamped layer and the 1-3/8" Circle Punch for the Calypso Coral layer.  They are both layered on the 1-3/4" Scallop Circle Punch.  My final touch for this card are the Silver Flower Brads that serve as the hubcaps for the pickup.  Darling!

     Here is the sketch for this week's post.  If you read the post for NEXT Monday, you're going to see a similar sketch.  As I'm preparing for my next eBook that features all new sketches, I'm going to include measurements for this card layout for a number of stamp sets, including quite a few holiday designs.  More about that later this summer!