Love Those Summer Crabs!

Aloha, all!

     Several weeks ago I shared all but one of the stamps in the new stamp set, By the Seashore.  The one stamp I left out of the group of shells was that darling little crab!  Now, where I hail from originally, crabs were the favorite summertime food for our family and friends.  What a great time we had going to our favorite restaurant where we would buy crabs by the bushel and where all the tables were set with brown paper, mallets, claw crackers, picks, and plenty of napkins and cold beer and iced tea!  Mmmmm, I can taste them just thinking about them!

     Where I live now there are certainly crabs.  But the whole atmosphere of the Maryland Eastern Shore cannot be duplicated just because there are crabs here.  So I was very happy to hear all about a crab feast that my sister-in-law, Deb, put on as a birthday party earlier this month.  I have just GOT to get there in the summer one of these years! 

     But I digress – and need to get back to that stamp set and that cute little crab.  I thought of it when I was telling someone else about those fab Chesapeake Bay crabs earlier this week.  Then the final week of the Create with Connie and Mary New Catalog edition came along, and there was my reason to use that lonely stamp – and a reason to send a card to Deb telling her that I really enjoyed hearing about the party!

     I couldn't believe it, but Stampin' Up!'s Tangerine Tango color is a perfect color for a Chesapeake Bay crab!  I originally picked the color because the Tangerine Tango sheet from the Designer Series Paper set, International Bazaar, reminded me of the red gingham vinyl tablecloths that we'd always have at family picnics during the summer – another likely venue for those summer crabs!  Once I figured out that I'd use this paper for the sketch challenge for the week, I had only to turn the paper over to find the Lucky Limeade print on the other side that was going to be just perfect to finish off the card!

     Here's the challenge sketch, so you can see where I got the ideas for some of the elements on my card.  My original idea was to have a few little crabs lined up along the bottom part of the card.  But those little critters were a bit larger than I originally thought.  So I decided to make the bottom horizontal element out of a combination of the Lucky Limeade 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon and the Tangerine Tango 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon.  Then I stamped the "Thinking of You" stamp from the stamp set, Sassy Salutations, on the main element, punched with the Decorative Label Punch.  Finally I added crabs to two of the corners, and accented the one on the lower right with a Lucky Limeade Designer Printed Brad. 

     One thing about this card that I'd like you to note is the way I cut the Designer Series Paper layers.  I've decided that cards look so much better if I put some thought into how the design is going to look after I cut it.  You can see that top to bottom and left to right, I've cut the paper symmetrically.  So I have the same design at the left and right edges of the card and the same on the top and bottom edges.  This doesn't always work out well and sometimes I end up covering one or two edges.  But if you're working with a pattern that's fairly even across the paper, try it sometime as you're planning your own card designs!

     And now the card is on its way to Deb – to let her know I'm thinking about her – and those luscious crabs!  For my fun this summer week, I'll be doing some paper crafting and enjoying the island breezes wafting through my craft room.  But I may just have to go down to see the ocean and smell the salty air while having some fun thinking about those crabs more than 3,000 miles away! 

     I hope you'll have some summer fun this week, too!