Moving Into Patriotic Mode!

Maybe it’s the music teacher in me, but I love patriotic music. How do you not enjoy hearing the John Phillip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever???? Or a moving rendition of The Star Spangled Banner???? (fyi – google Whitney Houston singing our national anthem at the Olympics in Atlanta – OMG!) Or listening to a group of elementary kiddos singing Lee Greenwood’s Proud To Be An American. They sure struggle through the verses, but let them hit the chorus and they can raise the roof with their enthusiasm!

So I have to admit I’m looking forward to this week’s designing and prepping for classes. I LOVE the Party Banners and Letters dies and can’t wait to show you the banner for Stamp ‘n Sip. And I’m working on the cards for our Patriotic card class on the 16th at the same time.

BUT patriotic themed cards and projects can be a bit hard when we don’t have any patriotic DSP or stamps to work with, right? WRONG!!!! This is the time you have to start thinking out of the box people! Do you recognize the denim blue mat above? It’s from the Country Lace DSP still available in the online store. The stripes for the Old Glory mat comes from the Painted Stripes stamp set also available in the online store. And the message for inside the card comes from several stamp sets, and you aren’t going to believe where the “TH” comes from.

Here’s what I did last week to get ready for the patriotic themed classes:

• I set down at the computer and went to all of our DSP patterns in the online store just to see which ones still available have Real Red, Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy, Misty Moonlight, and Blueberry Bushel – I had already forgotten about several of them!!!
• I did the very same thing with stamps as well – going through all of them in the online store takes less than 15 minutes but it was an easy way to see which ones have greetings I can work with.
• Finally, another time I went through the dies!!! I’m looking for things that might have words, stars, hearts, dies that resemble fireworks, etc. Same with embossing folders.
• Once I have a good idea what resources I have available, I can go to work designing!!!

Today’s FB LIVE is sharing the saran wrap technique, BECAUSE I think I can work that into another patriotic card as well!!! It’s truly thinking outside the box!!!! So check back this week to see where this patriotic theme takes us, and be sure to check out Whitney Houston’s national anthem performance. What a voice.

Final Thoughts….

A couple of my absolute favorite patriotic memories was hearing the US Marine Corp Band performing the Stars And Stripes Forever live in Washington, DC and actually seeing the original flag that flew over Fort McHenry. It was that very flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words for what would become our national anthem.

It’s a hard song to sing, and some performers feel like they have to embellish and put their artistic flair on it. Over the years Pool Boy and I have heard some wonderful and not so wonderful performances at football games, and we have a tradition of grading the performance on a pass/fail system. If we can sing along, it passes. And if we can’t – they fail. There’s no middle ground!

And I will get off of my patriotic soapbox now!!!! LOL!!! Until next time, have a great day crafting, creating, thinking outside the box, and God Bless!!!

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