4th of July Birthday

Hello everyone, hope you are all doing fine and making plans to enjoy the 4th of July weekend.  I absolutely love the 4th of July, not only because it's a day to celebrate our great country but because it's my Dad's birthday.  I'm so glad that I'll be spending the day with him.  Hopefully we can have a small bbq with family and celebrate his day.  I always tease him by telling him that all the fireworks are in his honor.  He's a very quite, humble and hard working guy.  I love him to pieces and couldn't ask for a better Father! My kids definitely are enjoying his company and appreciate having him around, especially because he's the only Grandparent they have left.
It's with this in mind that I planned my layout for this week's challenge at Celebrate the Occasion.  This week's challenge is all about the red, white and blue. After perusing some wonderful blogs, I came across the Pagemaps blog. I clicked on their sketches for June 2011 and immediately found one that I liked:

This is my interpretation:

This layout was created with my father in mind. Perfect for the 4th of July bday boy!!
Here's a close up of the two focal points....

                                             

The '4th of July' was cut from Stand and Salute and the 'hat' was cut from the Independence  Day cart. 

To spell out happy bday, I used these stamps from the G studio collection found in Michael's for $1

and for the sentiment on the top left corner I used these stamps from Hero Arts

  

I'm really enjoying these stamps, see here where I used it on my Memorial Day layout.  All the designer paper is from K&Company, the Americana stack.  I can't wait to add some pics to this layout.

Now onto some venting...initially, I attempted to cut the 4th of July sentiment from the Independence Day cart but no matter what I did this is how it turned out

I tried several sizes, changed the needle, pressure, speed, mat, etc. but nothing worked. Every time the cut broke...it seems some of the letters just cut too thin.   I guess this is why some people are switching over to the Silhouette sole for the use of titles, since apparently it cuts intricate pieces very nicely.  Oh, well that won't be the case for me, I have too much invested in my Bugs.

Well this is all for now, don't forget to head over to the Celebrate the Occasion blog and join the fun, the design team has done some wonderful projects.

Sending you crafting wishes,

Jeanette