summer holiday!

we're still enjoying playing with HOT colors and fun summery motifs this week, so here is a little more inspiration for you. remember, you needn't make YOUR card all-out (or at all!) hawaiian!!! as always, we want you to make this prompt your own, whether that means putting santa on the beach, stringing xmas lights on a palm tree, adding a few hibiscus to your poinsettias, or even just spicing up your color palette with some "tropical" hues. be as bold or as subtle as you like!

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "one of my favorite souvenirs from our trip to hawaii was a deck of hula girl playing cards which i bought specifically with the intention of using for papercrafts! i love the bright colors and fun graphic style and basically built the rest of my card to match, using both holiday products and regular stash... and this week's unscripted sketch #163."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Another friend of mine visited Hawaii recently, and last week she brought me these adorable holiday gingerbread people and beautiful tropical papers ... the timing couldn't have been more perfect.  I stamped the gingerbread on orange tropical paper and added blue pearls and a few flowers for embellishments.  The layout is June's Sketch for You to Try."

scroll down to the original post to link your own creation by wednesday, june 27th! ♥

mele kalikimaka

this week's prompt may seem a bit of a stretch, but bear with us for a minute ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! since we're all conscientious enough to make holiday cards year-round (or mad enough, depending on how one looks at it, lol!) then surely the best possible holiday cards to make as the northern hemisphere officially moves into summer are TROPICAL ones, right?! so this week we're asking you to make your holidays hot, hot, hot! 

you can do this by using bold, saturated colors... or by incorporating tropical flora and fauna like palm trees and flamingos... or by taking santa from the north pole to the beach... OR... well, however you'd like to interpret "hot" or "tropical" in a holiday context!

in case you're wondering, our title, mele kalikimaka, means "merry christmas" in hawaiian and is one of our favorite holiday songs, whether enjoyed in the 1950's version by bing crosby or the more recent one by jimmy buffet. (the links go to youtube versions of the song.)

here's what we did:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with several tropical colors of washi tape 

and this month's Hero Arts sketch.  

Since I wanted contrast between my tapes, 

I attached the top green one to a scrap of the light green cardstock before 

adhering it to my card. A few bits of bling finish the design."



Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "my husband and i were lucky enough to spend three weeks in hawaii last fall, and i've been obsessed with it ever since. the digital collage on this card was made for my travel scrapbook of that trip, and i liked it so much that i later used it for a few gift bags and even a couple of cards with a design similar to this one. which brings me to a bit of a point: sometimes i get so over-focused on "reinventing the wheel" with each and every card that i forget it's not only OK to do "repeats", it's actually quite a good way to save time and money!  i believe this is my favorite use yet... but since i reserve the right to use this collage yet again in future, that could change!"  :) :) :)

and now it's time to see what you will do with this summery prompt! will you go all out with the hawaiian theme... or just spice up your color palette? feel free to use the ideas of "hot" and "tropical" as boldly or subtlely as you like, then come back and link up your caliente creations before 6pm (EST) on wednesday, june 27th. keyword for galleries and our flickr group is JB-12-13.