The Free & The Brave

This is my most recent swap creation for the category "Patriotic". I have had this set for a while and knew I wanted to use it. I have to mail this tomorrow to make the due date, and just couldn't get it to work til last night. I do work better under pressure! We were under the threat of severe weather last night (nothing happened-Yeah) and my room is upstairs. I mapped out my idea just before dinner, then after I worked as quick as I could to cut the layers and stamp everything. I came downstairs with all my pieces just after 9 pm. I sat on the couch and paper pierced the corners. That is hard to see in the pic, but hopefully if you click to enlarge you'll be able to see. I used my mat pack and did the angled corners.

The base layer is Night of Navy. The neutral layer is Naturals White. I stamped the Sanded background in Creamy Caramel, and then stamped over that with Real Red & Night of Navy stars by stamping them off once before stamping onto the Naturals. I wanted a more muted look, not bold. I sponged all the edges of the Naturals White with Creamy Caramel. The soldier image is stamped in Night of Navy, and the saying in Real Red. I added a Red Gingham ribbon behind the saying for another accent. That seemed to work better than tying a bow or know with ribbon.

Enjoy!