Belli Challenge #68 - patriotic theme

This week's Belli Challenge is to create a project with a patriotic theme. You can interpret that in many ways. You could use stars, firecrackers, red/white/blue colors, military insignias, flags, and the list goes on.

I had to pull out my new Vintage Picnic stamp set from PaperTrey for this challenge. I love the little stars and flag inside the basket, and I thought it would be perfect. I went for a vintage-y, rustic, old-timey look by sponging all the edges. Instead of going with a bright blue and a bright red, I used Not Quite Navy and Riding Hood Red cardstock.

Did you see the star brads? They were originally gold, but I didn't want a shiny gold here. I heated up one brad at a time and dipped them in Distress Tea Dye embossing powder, heated them again to set the powder, and then covered them in Bronze distress crackle paint. I wanted them to have a bumpy rusty look to them - the embossing powder gives me the bumps and imperfections, and the bronze crackle paint gives me that rusty look. After the paint dried, I smooshed them around in some Walnut Stain distress ink to age them up a little bit.


Check out what the other Belli Girls have created here on the Belli Blog. I hope you are inspired to play along with us and create something patriotic. Don't forget to add your link to your picture in the Mr. Linky widget. If you upload to SCS or PCP, please use keyword CBC68.


Stamps: Vintage Picnic (PaperTrey), Take a Bough - the small star(PaperTrey), weathered wood stamp from Deadbeat Designs (found at Stamp Salado)
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Old Paper distress ink, White craft ink
CS: Whisper White, Riding Hood Red, Not Quite Navy
Other: sponge, star brads, Tea Dye distress embossing powder, Bronze distress crackle paint, star nestability, copics, Soft Suede ribbon