Inspired Thanks

Happy Saturday!  I hope that you are enjoying the weekend.  It is GORGEOUS weather here!!  I enjoyed an hour long walk this morning (with short sleeves!!) and have the windows open!  Ahhhh!! You can't beat Southern California weather this time of year!!

I needed to make a Thank You card for the Oldest Kiddo to give to his optometrist.  It would seem that said Kiddo threw his back pack one too many times and somehow smashed his glasses to smithereens, despite having them in the case. Well, his optometrist just so happens to be the father of one of Kiddo's classmates.  He graciously took the Kiddo's glasses into work with him and replaced the lenses, saving me a drive.

The Inspiration Challenge on SCS today was perfect to get the creative gears grinding.  Today's inspiration site was the Galleria Arts and Crafts in Calgary.  I found this Raku pottery plate as my inspiration

And here is the card that I came up with from this inspiration

Card base is (?) SU's Not Quite Navy and is 4 3/4" x 5 1/2" with the corners rounded on one side with my Zutter 1/2" corner rounder.  I embossed a piece of brushed copper card stock (from my stash) with Sizzix Texture Fade Sheet Music.

For the main image, I started with a piece of Pure Luxury Ivory card stock and made a masked for the "moon" out of scrap paper.  I then randomly squished (that would be the technical term) Encore metallic copper ink on the paper.  I then applied Distress Stain in Broken China twice, drying between layers with my heat gun. I then used some Distress Ink in  Faded Jeans to darken the blue areas even more.  Everything was then spritzed with Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mist Abominable Snowman. 

The heron is actually a line stamp from Just for Fun Stamps. I stamped the image and then used a black marker to fill in all the open space.  I then free handed the grasses around the heron. 

At this point I totally messed up my outline of the moon.  Soooo, I cut out another "moon" lightly sponged it with Distress Broken China ink and adhered it over the previous moon.  This meant that I had to use my stampamajig and re stamp the heron. Sigh....

The sentiment is from Stampin' Up (?) All Year Cheer.  I stamped it on a scrap piece of Pure Luxury Ivory with Ranger's Archival Ink in Jet Black.  I rounded two of the corners, lightly sponged more Distress Broken China along the edges and adhered. 

This is a little different than my usual, but I rather enjoyed going a different path!!  Sometimes it's good to get off the beaten path!!

I'll be back later this week with the E-Team!!  We've got another hop in the works for you!!  'Till then.....