Butterfly Inspirations Blog Hop – Relaxing Waterside in Red, White and Blue

As soon as I saw the Relaxing Waterside bundle, I just knew I had to create this patriotic Fourth of July card! The Fourth of July always reminds me of the beach, fireworks, and America – and this card has all of that! Read on for more information.

Three Adirondack chairs in a row, in red, white and blue, sitting on the sand, with fireworks exploding behind them!

The Adirondack chairs are so much fun to play with. One die cuts out the chair frame and the extra piece of wood, one die cuts out the backs of the chairs (there are two options), and one die cuts out the armrests. You can mix and match colors or make the chairs from the same color, and they go together easily. I made three chairs, one out of Basic White, one out of Real Red, and one out of Misty Moonlight. I like to put a strip of liquid glue along the back of the chair frame, then tuck the chair back into the slot and press together. You can leave the chair backs loose or glue them to the top of the chair frame using liquid glue. I used crumb cake ink with a sponge dauber to dirty up the chairs after assembling them. I mean, they are sitting on the beach, they wouldn’t be too clean, right?

Now the tricky part – did you figure out how I made the fireworks? Those are the cattails from the Relaxing Waterside stamp set, turned upside down and embossed in silver! Funny, right? (You can also stamp them upside down in green to look like trees. What else can you think of?) First stamp the cattails upside down using Versamark, then cover with silver embossing powder and heat emboss. Don’t use the Embossing Buddy because you want it to be messy. Stamp the cattails in various sizes and directions to create the look of fireworks.

To make the sand, I tore Pecan Pie cardstock and then flicked the dark Pecan Pie blender pen to create more texture. You can layer strips as shown above, or use just one strip. You can even tuck some of the chairs into the sand behind the first line of sand. It does not matter how tall the strips of Pecan Pie cardstock are, you can make them any height you want. Adhere the “sand” onto the bottom of the card. Next adhere the Adirondack chairs that you have die cut, assembled, and dirtied up with crumb cake ink. I like to adhere the two outside chairs first using liquid glue, and then pop up the middle chair on dimensionals.

For this card, I used Pretty Peacock for the sky to show a deeper night sky and two rows of sand.

This is the same card but with a balmy blue background and only one line of sand.

This was such an interesting card to create and a fun bundle to play with! Relaxing Waterside is definitely going to get a lot of use in my craft room.

This is part of the Butterfly Inspirations Blog Hop! For more inspiration on using red, white and blue in your projects, please visit my friends’ blogs:

• Tonya Bowers
• Patricia Houser
• Sally McFadden
• Tina Taylor
• Donna Biderman – you are here!

To watch the process video, click here.

To order from my store, please go to https://donnabiderman.stampinup.net/ and click on Shop Now in the upper left hand corner.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me, I will be happy to help you!

Stampin’ Fun,

Donna