HOT AIR HELLO

To me, images of hot air balloons conjure up thoughts of balmy spring and summer days and nights. When the sky is lovely, the winds perfect, and life is good.

For my card, I once again chose the precious hot air balloon from the set, Time to Celebrate (page 51 in the Occasions Catalog).

Since I have been accumulating more and more sets of the Blendabilities, I thought I would give them a try on the balloon. When I finished coloring it in, I felt it had something of a vintage flair. With that, I continued the vintage look throughout the card. Mostly I achieved that in my color selection and the fine art of sponging.

First off is my background though. What do you think of it? Does it remind  you of anything? A little later in the post I will divulge what I used to create this old-fashioned look for the background.

The happy "hello", which is cut from Old Olive cardstock and also sponged, was created with the new Thinlits set, Hello You. You can bundle these Thinlits with the coordinating stamp set, Crazy About You, to save 15%! (page 31 of the Occasions Catalog)

A freebie in one of the past Paper Pumpkin kits was a container of these cute embellishments in the In Colors that will be retiring this year, I chose one in Baked Brown Sugar. Although it was adorable by itself, I took my Blendabilities and colored a few sections in the colors on my card. Isn't that cool that you can colorize embellishments with the Blendabilities??!? 

OK. Are you ready for the big reveal? Of how I made the background, that is?? I've done this in the past, but I couldn't resist giving it a try again -- since it is naval orange season, that is. Yes -- I used the mesh bag from my oranges as a stencil, sponging Soft Suede and Sahara Sand ink through the mesh. Works great -- and I love the effect.

I'd like to get a little conversation and maybe some sharing going here. Do you ever use nontraditional items, such as this orange bag mesh,  in your crafting? If so, what are some examples? I would love it if you could share a link or two or more to paper projects you have created utilizing something unusual in a comment to this post. I will feature any creations that are shared in an upcoming blog post. We would love to see what you come up with!

Paper Players Theme Challenge #234

Think spring -- and WONDERFUL -- hot air balloon weather! 

Spring-y

Smiles.