Compendium of Curiosities 3, Challenge 5

Happy Independence Day!  So grateful for all the blessings and freedom we have in the Good Ole USA.

We are already at Challenge 5 in the Compendium of Curiosities Challenges.  Time has just flown by.  Again, I am down to the wire on getting my piece submitted, hee, hee, hee.

Challenge 5 is all about Distress Watercoloring on page 39 of Tim's book.  To play along you need your own book as Linda, the Curiosity Crew and participants will not be posting the technique.  For more information on the Challenges go the Linda's web site at www.lindaledbetter.com.

Challenge 5 is sponsored by Inspiration Emporium and Joy and the IE gang will award an incredibly generous Fifty Dollar gift certificate to one lucky randomly selected participant.  Be sure to stop by the IE website here to see all the incredible things they have.  The Curiosity Crew's Choice winner will receive a collection of Tim's products courtesy of Tim and Mario.  The previous winners have been amazing so be sure to check them out if you haven't yet.

Since it is the fourth of July I wanted to do something patriotic that could be used as home decor or party decorations to celebrate the day.  I created some patriotic stakes.

I pulled out my Mini Blueprints 2 CMS146 using the flag, USA, star, and liberty.  I stamped these onto the smooth side of watercolor paper using archival ink.

After coloring they looked like this.

I wanted to make some stars that I could mount my images on so I pulled out this original Sizzix die Stars #2.  Anyone still have any of their originals?  Mine are still going strong.  Love the steel rule dies. Using some paper from Tim's idea-ology Seasonal paper stash I cut a bunch of stars.

Unfortunately I found that the even the largest star was too small to mount the images on.  Plan B was to cut some card stock with the Armor Shield Die, 659445 as the base.

I scuffed up the shields with a sanding block and started assembling by patriotic sticks.

Miracle tape holds the stick in place.  These are skewers originally meant for using to BBQ but I find they make excellent craft sticks.  They are about 12" long with a point at one end which allows you to use them as plant stakes.  Or they can be easily trimmed to any length desired.

Here are some close ups of the images.

I think they make a pretty display all together in a vase.  This is 8 of the patriotic stakes in a group.  They would also be fun poking out of plants to add some festivity to the day.

These patriotic stakes could easily be blinged up for those of you who like a little more sparkle.  I wanted to keep them plain with the focus on the stamped images and stars.

What a fun and relaxing day.  Hope you are taking the time to spend some time with family and friends and celebrating our freedom.  

Thank You for stopping by.  I always appreciate your comments as well.

Happy Creating!

Hugs,  Sharon