United We Stand

Hello friends and visitors! I have layout for you today to celebrate unity between neighboring countries and to honor the friendship I have with many bloggers to the North. I was going for a Folk Art look. Emerald Creek Dares is having a challenge to celebrate nations, and I wanted to blend the borders between Canada and USA with my project. That blob you see on the upper right is Canada and USA!

Lots of layers on this and plenty to look at; I really piled it on! I've got corrugate board for the base,  American flag scrapbook paper, and hand designed card. I threw in a couple of Tim's Pocket Cards for some good vintage fun.

There's stenciling using Tim's Stars and  stencils I made using  the negative from Tim's
Fall  Foliage Thinlits -- maple leaf die and a maple leaf punch.

For the focal layer, I started off with a mop up piece.  I had stenciled some stars with cracke paste (I think) and run through some leftover Blueprint Sketch ink puddle. It really looked terrible, and probably should have gone in the round file, but I keep everything! I was able to salvage it by heat embossing the stars using Emerald Creek's Clear Matte Embossing Powder and then spraying with Distress Abandoned Coral Spray stain. I added Barn Door ink randomly for depth. and embossed sparklers with an old stamp and Emerald Creek's Easter Parade Embossing Powder--it's not just for Easter! You can see just a hint of the shimmer, but it's quite sparkly in real life! I stamped and embossed the sparkles on the bottom most American flag layers, too--you can just barely see it in the photo above. I heat embossed in white on the top American flag layer by using Ranger's embossing dabber  on the reverse side of the stars stencil and flipping it onto the paper before sprinkling with powder. It doesn't look like much since it's all but covered up, but it adds some shabbiness to the scrapbook paper. The corrugate and scrapbook paper layers were each given a coat of Distress  Vintage Collage Medium.

The maple leaves were die cut and painted with Barn Door Distress paint and the tips heat embossed with Emerald Creek's Burnt Copper Leaves Embossing Powder.

I fussy cut around Canada and United States from one of Tim's pocket cards and inked with Barn Door and Blueprint Sketch. Sorry, I had to leave our Alaskan and island and more Northern Canadian friends off, but I think you can understand why!  But you are included! A Chit Chat quote typically uttered by the Americans is meant to show my friendship toward our friends across the border, and I blurred the lines of the border as another way to say we are united.

To the right you see one of the Pocket Cards put to use and to the left I heat embossed stars and maple leaves (only one showing here) using the Clear Matte. I painted the  corrugate  background using Barn Door and Chipped Sapphire Distress paints after coating the board in gesso and embossing.

I colored some file folders with Blueprint Sketch Distress spray and Barn Door Distress ink and a tiny bit of  Frayed Burlap ink and die cut two tags using Tim's Tiny Tabs and Tags and Tag and Bookplate dies. I painted a cotton scrap with Barn Door and the punch stencil  and some vintage seam binding using Distress inks in Chipped Sapphire and Barn Door.

I want to stress this is NOT a card! It is quite large, measuring approximately 8 by 11 inches. It is also quite thick as you can see by the photo below.

I am sharing this with the following challenges:

Emerald Creek Dares-Nations Celebrated!

Scrapy Land Challenge #45-Anything Goes I used 3 different Sizzix dies.

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #26-Reach For the Stars

Word Art Wednesday Challenges #238 and #239-Anything Goes

The Artistic Stamper-July's Creative Challenge-All Things Bright and Beautiful I used one stamp--sparkler--unknown maker.

Thank you for stopping by today and for all your wonderful comments!I read and appreciate each and every one of them!

Hugs and Blessings!

Sara Emily

UPDATE: Tremendously honored!

Honorable Mention at Emerald Creek Dares :)