Inspired by {The Smithsonian Institution}

This week we are poking around in the Smithsonian Institution online to see what we see. The challenge thread can be found here. one of the first things I had seen when I was considering the site was there was a collection at that time arranged around some of the things I had personally seen as a teenager visiting Washington DC. With a high school "Close-Up" group.  besides the things that were organized for us to attend we also had some free time to go exploring and one thing we did was hit the museums. One thing we did was wait for the flag to be on display. it was in a case where a curtain came down and it rolled back out of the way inch by inch to let the flag be seen for a short period of time.This is one of the biggest memories that I have of that, there were of course other things but, the watching peoples faces while they waited for the flag to be visible was something that has stayed with me.

 I had picked up this sentiment from Our Daily Bread Designs when it first came out and I have been waiting I guess for a time to use it. and that is the fun part about the Inspiration challenge is you pretty much get to do what you want. I had this scrap of vellum cardstock on my table left over from some recent winter/Christmas card I made and I tend to play with what ever is in front of me so, it lead me to combining it with this flag background ( also from Our Daily Bread Designs) I like the tattered look the distress inks gave the flag and the softness the vellum ads it was almost like a protective cover for the aging fabric. which then allows the sentiment to really POP for me like this. There is a white cardstock glued to the inside of the back of the card so that a note can be written there.

A peek at old glory and the link goes to the Star Spangled Banner ( as I did do mine as a hanging flag design)
I actually ended up with two cards from the site ( so far) and the first is seen below, I decided to load this but, not make it the main challenge sample because, the inspiration from it is actually more of a mental thing than a visual look. When I first started poking around through the sites collections I did come across this vintage Barbie doll in her swim suit and when I looked at that I knew I had this Emerson stamp (Gourmet rubber stamps bathing suit) sitting on the table for the last few weeks and my brain said, well. those yellow polka dot bikinis really are smaller nowadays aren't they... 

 and so. the image has a little bit of pencils, a yellow marker for the bloom and gel pen for the sun glass lens. I gave her grey hair because, this is not a sentiment I would have thought of 20 years ago when my hair still had color of its own in the strands. I did use a stitched rectangle out of the waffle flower lacy layers A7 set and the card base is from Hero Arts so, its ( US) A2 in real life.

 a peek at this Barbie complete with her heels on too :) So, that is about it for me today. thanks for stopping by.