Celebrating an American Summer

Vintage summer in small town America. I don't know if it is still the same because I now live in a metropolitan area, but I remember growing up in a small town. Summer was a patriotic time, a time of long, relaxed days sitting on a porch, fishing at the lake, eating tomatoes and sweet corn. Roasting marshmallows after a day of swimming...wonderful memories remembered with black and white photographs.

This card started out as a 4th of July card with a couple of teddy bears in a wagon waving a flag. But the more I worked on it, the more I remembered the summer days of my childhood and that sent me searching for stamps to put those memories on paper.

The springer spaniel holding the flag is a Whispers stamp I picked up last year and have used several times. The rest of the stamps are vintage stamps from The Artistic Outpost. I love these stamps and have used them a number of times also. The card turned out to be a collage type mock up of an old photo album. I distressed the edges and sanded some of the papers for a worn look. The papers are printed out from a digital download from Scrapbook Bytes. I fell in love with a number of digital scrapbooking kits by Designs by Krista at that site. The inside sentiment "Proud to be an American" was printed via the computer.


Here's the card recipe:

Stamps: Keeper and Home by Artistic Outpost, Whispers by Sugarloaf Products, SU Stars & Swirls, Lexicon of Love
Paper: Celebrate America by Designs by Krista, SU Whisper White, Real Red & Night of Navy
Ink: Stewart Superior India Ink, Creamy Caramel, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink, Real Red, Night of Navy, White craft ink
Accessories: Deckle edge scissors, Cuttlebug, Consentric Stars die, Spellbinders tag die, SU Brass Hodgepodge Hardware. sewing machine

What are your childhood summer memories?