Pop of Paradise For My Daughter

I couldn't wait to begin my summer holidays, on Canada Day, by designing a card for my daughter Courtney.

Courtney has just finished her first year of a two year course to become a Licensed Practical Nurse. Her course is actually four years compressed into two and she has been working very hard to maintain her "A" grades which is no small feat considering she and her boyfriend are also raising their own soon to be three-year-old daughter!

For Courtney's final practicum of the year, she was placed in a care home in the south end of Winnipeg. When she learned of her placement, she was a little nervous about accidentally doing something wrong there because the home was for Jewish patients and there were strict rules about not bringing any food or water into the facility unless it was kosher.

She was also worried that she might inadvertently offend a patient by doing procedures, etc. that might conflict with their beliefs.

As it turned out, the staff at the care home were completely impressed with her and could not stop telling her how well she was doing and that they had never had a student like her before!

Just before she finished her practicum, the Director of Care took Courtney aside to tell her how impressed she was with her and offered her a summer job! Unfortunately, Courtney was unable to take it because she had to look after her own daughter during the summer (as well as preparing assignments ahead of starting classes in September so she could then concentrate on studying for tests) while her daughter's daycare provider took holidays.

When Courtney explained this to the Director of Care, she was told to return after she completed her nurse training because they would offer her a job at that time! Of the group of students that did their practicum at the same care home, she was the only one who was offered a job!

We are so very proud of her so I wanted to create a special card for her.

Choosing my Brick Wall Embossing Folder, I inked up the top flap with Melon Mambo using my now retired Brayer. I did this in order to create pink grout lines between the bricks.

I carefully placed a matte of Thick Whisper White card stock on the opposite flap of the folder and closed the folder. I ran it through my Big Shot and then carefully removed the embossed and inked matte to work with it.

Oh oh . . . I'd done it again! I was making a vertical card but needed the bricks in a horizontal format. Unfortunately, I had not placed the matte in the folder correctly. So, what to do? I used this first matte as my test piece for coloring the bricks!

I used Sponge Daubers with Smoky Slate, Basic Gray, Basic Black and Melon Mambo to color the bricks. At the end, I used a Stampin' Sponge to sponge softly around the whole matte with Basic Black. I was quite pleased with how the bricks turned out!

Love the color I achieved on the bricks but too bad the
bricks were the wrong orientation for my card!

After inking/embossing another matte, I set forth to color bricks again. So what happens this time? I liked the first matte better! Oh well! I'll use the first matte in a future project.

I used my MISTI to stamp the flamingo from the Pop of Paradise stamp set in Melon Mambo on Thick Whisper White card stock. Next, I used a tip learned from fellow demonstrator, Bibi Cameron in a video on her site. I cleaned the stamp without moving it and then took a Rose Red Stampin' Write Marker and added color to the stamp on the wing, neck, body, and legs to provide shadowing.

I also used the Basic Black marker to color the end of the flamingo's beak to make it look like a real flamingo. The MISTI ensured that I was able to stamp successfully in the exact same place each time.

I then used Versamark to stamp three leaves and heat embossed them using Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder. And then came the fun part–fussy cutting the flamingo and leaves. Not so fun but effective! I applied liquid glue to the bottom of the leaves and adhered them to the matte.

The Layering Circles Framelits were used to cut a Melon Mambo scalloped matte and a plain circular matte from Silver Glimmer Paper. These were glued together with liquid glue.

Thick Melon Mambo Baker's Twine was wrapped around the matte and taped to the back. Glue dots were used to adhere a circular arrangement made from the now retired Silver Cording Trim. The circle mattes were adhered on top of this using Dimensionals and the flamingo adhered on top, also with Dimensionals.

The sentiment from the Crazy About You stamp set was stamped in Versamark on Basic Black card stock and heat embossed with White Stampin' Emboss Powder. The ends of the strip were flagged using the Banner Triple Punch. The strip was attached to the bottom of the matte with Dimensionals.
The finished brick matte was adhered with Dimensionals to a Melon Mambo matte, and then that to the front of a Basic Black card base.

I stamped with Melon Mambo on a Whisper White matte using the grunge stamp from the Touches of Texture stamp set. The sentiment was stamped with Basic Black to complete the card.

I am so very pleased with how this card turned out and can't wait to give it to my daughter!