Hi friends, I hope your Monday is off to a great start!

Today I’m sharing this dreamy card featuring a sunset hot air balloon ride that was inspired by a photo my husband took (see below) near the end of June. I have been sitting on this inspiration photo waiting on my C9 Summer Camp pre-order of cabin dies to come in so I could make this card. Not only is the sunset inspired by real life, but so is the subject! Last summer when we moved into our home, and maybe once so far this summer, we would see hot air balloons out in the evenings getting quite a spectacular view of Mount Rainier. After seeing the sunset in late June and the Parsley cabin die from Summer Camp, nothing could be better to me than mashing the two together, along with another Summer Camp die set, and making a beautiful card.

This photo is what inspired it all! Mt. Rainier basking in alpenglow and the moonrise.

First off, I’m in love (and awe) with how the background ink blending turned out. If you’re like me and you’re a nervous ink blender, Distress Oxides are your friend! I have learned that this summer, and am in love with them! They make blending an absolute dream since they’re a bit thicker than dye inks since they have a pigment-based formula. To make this beautiful sunset, I color matched as close as possible by using Stormy Sky, Speckled Egg, Dried Marigold, and Saltwater Taffy, which I blended in that exact order. The other tip I have picked up when blending these inks is that you need to have enough ink on your blender, and you need to go over the sections multiple times to really get a smooth blend.

While letting my background panel dry, I worked on cutting my mountains using the Cardscapes die set. I die cut the furthest one in the background out of Midnight, the next closest out of Peacock, and the one in the foreground out of Oceanside cardstock. I used the corresponding stencil and inks in order to add some shading and definition to the mountains, but focusing the shadows on the left side since the sun in my reference photo casts light on the side of the mountain. This bit of shading brings a lot of life to the scene, and I think it’s a super important step.

Next, I die cut my hot air balloon. I cut the base of it out of Honeysuckle cardstock, and the stripes out of Sea Glass, Buttercup and Peacock, and the basket was die cut out of Wheat. I went back and forth on the colors of the balloon for a long time before settling on the pink, and I’m glad I did! I had orignally been deciding between Poppy and Buttercup for the balloon, but they felt too primary colored in relation to the background. After assembling my balloon and placing it on the card, I realized the background needed something to pull the card together more, so I decided to die cut the frame die from the Cardscapes die set out of black cardstock. When you use this frame, you get a leafy corner, and I decided to cut that off since it didn’t make sense in this scene.

I glued down the mountains and the frame, and popped the hot air balloon up on some Simon Says Stamp foam squares. I die cut the ‘hi’ from the Parsley Cabin die set out of Concord & 9th Gold cardstock, and one additional white die cut to add dimension. I decided I wanted a sub greeting, so I white heat embossed on Grapefruit ‘how I miss you so’ from the Hello Wishes stamp set, and die cut it using the coordinating sentiment die. At this point, I decided to die cut three hearts using the smallest heart die and make them the tittle of the ‘i’. I think this adds a nice softness to the sentiment, and just the right amount of embellishment to the card.

I hope you enjoyed this card, and that I have inspired you to try out (or get out) Distress Oxides! They’re so fun to use, and I love the sunset that I was able to create with them. That’s all I’ve got for today, I hope to catch you next time!