Happy 4th July

Hi my friends, I don't normally post on a Saturday but I'm sharing a card I made to wish all my friends in the USA a very Happy 4th of July and I couldn't resist using the adorable, if a little stern and grumpy Arthur, the latest addition to the Colorize family, from the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Chapter 3 Halloween release. The expression on his face just cracks me up, he has so much atitude but I'm not sure he would be the life and soul of your Independence Day Party.

I trimmed a panel of Distress Watercolor Card to 4.3/4" x 6.3/4", coloured the right hand section by applying Fired Brick Distress Oxide Ink through the Stripes Shifter Layering Stencil using a mini round blending tool and the other side using Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide Ink. I spritzed the panel with water and blotted with kitchen towel to create a little of the water droplet effect.

I placed the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Falling Stars Thinlits along the edge of the last stripe and die-cut and repeated on the remaining blue section.

I trimmed the panel down to 4" x 6", matted on to white card which would show throw the die-cut section, then on to a 4.1/4" x 6.1/4" panel coloured around the edge with Fired Brick Distress Oxide ink using the direct to paper technique and fixed to a 5" x 7" white card blank.

I die-cut the base, claws, eyes and eyebrows for Arthur from Idea-ology BlackOut Kraftstock and all the other pieces from Distress Watercolor Card. I watercoloured each piece as I worked my way through the assembly using Black Soot, Hickory Smoke or Gathered Twigs Distress Inks using a Distress Detailer Brush, keeping some pieces very light and adding layers of colour and shadows as necessary as I went along. I fixed Arthur to the branch using Distress Collage Medium Matte and added to the panel using Tim Holtz/Sizzix Mini Foam Adhesive.

At this point, I was rushing to get the card finished before I lost the light and didn't realise I had deleted some of the step-by-step photos from my camera. I die-cut the top hat from Distress Watercolor Card and Red Classic Kraftstock using Tim Holtz/Sizzix Winter Wardrobe Thinlits from the Christmas release. I added stripes hand cut from the red cardstock and stars die-cut from Falling Stars. I added splatters using Black Soot Distress Paint and a White Posca Pen and Small Talk Occasions Stickers for the sentiment.

I finished by adding extra die-cut Falling Stars in the bottom corner.

Have a great day celebrating with your family and friends and I'll be back on Monday to share my DT project for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, in the meantime, have fun and happy crafting.

Hugs Kath xxx

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