Thank You card for Stampin 411 Challenge

It seems to be becoming my trend to post new material on Tuesday evenings.  Maybe that's because my weekends of late have been so busy and I've been taking Monday's to recover.  In any case, I have lots of new cards and ideas and expect more than one post this week!

What a wonderful Victoria Day long weekend we just had!  I love long weekends anyway....one more day with my husband home (which is good in itself) but he often takes over the care of our son which leaves me more time to get things done around the house.  This weekend was no exception.  After spending a fabulous day up in Durham with my sister-in-law and her husband celebrating my son's 2nd birthday, I took Sunday and Monday to get some yard work done.  The rain held off on Monday (finally) and I was able to get my tomatoes, onions and some herbs planted in my newly created vegetable garden.  We'll see how they do....if the deer eating the tulips right next to the house is any indication of how the wildlife view my gardens they may not be long for this world : )

I finally got down to some stamping tonight.  I'm needing to create Thank You cards for all the wonderful gifts my son received for his birthday as well as some customer Thank You's.  I decided to use the Stampin' 411 Saturday Sketch Challenge as my inspiration for this card:

Fox and Friends Thank You card

 I had fun using the "Fox and Friends" stamp set (thanks to my sister-in-law for letting me borrow it!) for this card along with the Play Date DSP.  I love the combination of colours that the Play Date DSP uses and I thought it was perfect to use for these thank you cards.  The base of the card is So Saffron card stock.  I then took the Play Date DSP and cut two pieces; one to 4" x 3" and the other to 4" x 2 1/4".  The ribbon to hide the seam between the two pieces of DSP is Old Olive 1/4" grosgrain ribbon.  The matting for the images is a piece of 3" x 3" Chocolate Chip card stock. It is backed with a 3" x 3" piece of Tempting Turquoise.  I think maybe next time I would switch the position of these two squares.  The Tempting Turquoise doesn't seem to provide enough contrast to the So Saffron background. 

I love the images of the animals in the "Fox and Friends" stamp set and I had fun stamping them onto 1 1/4" squares in Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip and Old Olive inks.

Another use for the Decorative Label punch!

Finally, the "Thank You" sentiment comes from the "Family Phrases" collection of stamps.  After stamping the image in Tempting Turquoise ink I used the Decorative Label punch in a "new" way.  Taking the narrower end of the punch and putting it at the top of sentiment rather than on the side and then punching again at the bottom, again with the narrow end to create this smaller "label".  I did the same thing, only leaving a little wider edge for the Chocolate Chip mounting.  Thanks to Julie B at Julie B's Stampin' Space for the idea...check out her blog to see photos of how to do this or come to my next Make and Take on June 7th : )