Day 7 of the Official We Love Dawn Blog Hop with Papertrey Ink

Today is the 7th and last day of the Official We Love Dawn Blog Hophonoring Dawn McVey and her joy filled heart, even in the midst of 7 years of very trying circumstances.  I speak from experience when I say that being sick a lot is difficult and being sick every single day can suck the joy, peace and hope right out of you.  Yet, through it all, Dawn has maintained a positive attitude.  I've only known Dawn via the paper crafting industry for about 2 years when I first found Papertrey Ink.  It was December of 2015 and now I don't know how I missed them for so long. I love their products and they just seem to suit my style so much.

Today's card uses a couple of sets designed by Dawn.  The first is "A Thrill of Hope" which features many faith based holiday sentiments for Christmas Cards.  This particular verse is my favorite of the set and the typography is fantastic.

I started by die cutting a stitched rectangle from gold foiled cardstock for the background.  Then I die cut a smaller hem stitched rectangle (Spellbinders) from the Scarlet Shimmer Cardstock.  I knew that I wanted to use the Holiday Greens Borders Stamps and Dies to create at least one border, so I cut a piece of 4.5 inch x 6 inch Stamper's Select White Cardstock and then cut two of the berry borders from that piece of cardstock.  That way, I could make sure they stamped end to end (the full 5.5 inches) but I could keep the cardstock in place using my Mini MISTI with the die cut negative as my placeholder.  This just makes it incredibly easy to stamp the two layers while keeping everything aligned.  I stamped the greenery in Ripe Avocado Ink and the berries in Scarlet Jewel Ink.

For the sentiment, I went over the Scarlet Shimmer rectangle with my powder tool which is especially important with vellum or shimmer cardstock.  Because the surface is a bit slicker, I find that any residual oils or lotions on my hands are even likelier to trap stray particles of embossing powder so I always make sure to use my powder tool first.   I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat set it.  Then I adhered that onto the lower right hand side of the larger background panel so that I could put the greenery on the top and left sides of the sentiment panel.  Once I had the greenery added, I went over all of the berries with my Wink of Stella Clear Shimmer Pen which you may or may not be able to see here. 

For a finishing touch, I added a few gold sequins for a touch of elegance. The way the light caught the shimmer cardstock here, it looks lighter than it actually is.  While not as deep a color, it is a good match to the Scarlet Jewel Ink that I used for the berries.

I hope you've enjoyed this week long festival of projects I've made using products from Papertrey Ink and all the Stamp and Dies that were designed by Dawn. You can read more about Dawn's Journey and help with fundraising efforts on their behalf here.

If you'd like to send a card to Dawn you can do that at this address:

Dawn McVey

PO Box 25322

Overland Park, KS 66213

*Updated Address 11/17/2017*

Thank you so much for checking out my posts each day this week and I hope you'll come back soon.  Dawn is doing incredibly well since her transplant.