SOS #158: Red, White, and Blue

It's JULY! WHO SAID IT COULD BE JULY ALREADY YES I AM YELLING! *ahem*

It's Tuesday, and time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. Since this Friday is Independence Day in the US, we're asking you to use Red, White, and Blue (or the colors of your country's flag) on your projects.

Here's my card, then I'll explain:

I decided I needed to use some of my patriotic Red, White, and Blue (RW&B) washi tape. You saw that coming, didn't you...

Actually, I'm a rebel. Surprised? Probably not. When I think RW&B, I think "patriotic", so I challenged myself to use those colors and NOT make it patriotic. I think I failed.

I started with a RW&B striped washi tape, but I thought it was too bright, so I put the white star tape over it and it was muted quite nicely.

I made it a Thanks card, partly because that particular Paper Smooches sentiment was a nice size. There is no logic in my card-making.

Here's another card I made:

As soon as I stamped the "hello" I thought it looked like a name tag. Well, it could still be a good OWH card. Oh, and put your finger over the red squiggles to hide them and see how boring the card looked. I actually said, out loud, "I need a squiggle stamp". (Yep, and I just put that period outside of the quote because I am a rebel and I think it makes more sense that way.) So, I went in search of a squiggle stamp and found this postmark mark from a Lawn Fawn set. BINGO*!

And now, because people have asked me about my pretty trash, I give you another card I made -- took me hours, people, HOURS -- and it will go into the trash as soon as I finish typing this. Here she is:

(You can click to embiggen to see the detail of the tabs.)

I bring you my More Is More entry for the week, though it didn't start out that way. I began by applying red Distress ink over a Simon Says Stamp stencil and it came out just as I thought it would: like a pic-i-nic blanket or table cloth. But it was very, very RED, and it needed to be toned down, so I thought I'd stamp strips of white card stock with bold navy words. This big and bold Happy Birthday seemed perfect, but the strips of white were boring.

Enter: The set of MFT folder tab dies I got for free with my last order since I bought so much stuff. *ahem*  I got this crazy idea that cutting out the Happy and Birthday with folder tabs would be a cool look, so I went one step further and stamped a second Happy so I could use three of the tab dies. You see where this is going, right?

Anyway, after MUCH futzing and re-cutting and re-stamping, I finally got all three layers to line up. Then I thought it was still boring, so I added some wood veneer things colored with the Navy ink. Please note the two schmears: one next to the 'y' in Birthday, and one paw print at the top left. It's ruined, RUINED, I tell you, not that it turned out all that great to start with.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot. I felt it also needed something under the Birthday to fill the white space. Can you say "More Is More"? So I cut a piece of washi tape in half** and stuck it on.

The end.

Into the trash it goes.

So, wanna play with SOS and the colors of your nation's flag? Come on over and join us!!!

And thanks for stopping by!

* BINGO and Tic-Tac-Toe are not the same thing, you know that, right? BINGO is a 5x5 grid and Tic-Tac-Toe is 3x3. So why do blogs have BINGO challenges with a 3x3 grid? /endrant

** Cutting washi tape is quite easy to do with a paper trimmer, mostly because washi tape sticks. Just put it on your trimmer, lined up with one of the lines, stick it down, and slice! You can peel off one side at a time, and they don't even get in each other's way!

Stuff I used: SU Night of Navy card stock, washi tape, and the following:
 Note: The file folder dies were free from MFT this month, but will be available for purchase next month.I hope I remember to update the link. ;/

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