HIMCR #350 fourth Saturday theme of any holiday

Independence Day 7/4/18...is the holiday I chose for my holiday theme using this selected design team offered image from prize sponsor for HIMCR's #350 challenge, My Besties. 

Isn't "Curly Jean" just the cutest American patriot! Ready to celebrate in her red, white, and blue spirit wear!  HIMCR's theme schedule indicates that 4th Saturday of each month is to be "any holiday" theme. So the paper-crafter/blogger can select any holiday including birthdays to create an item to link to the challenge. You can link up to 3 different cards/paper-crafting items that are new and fit the theme of the challenge. So it's up to you if Mother's Day or Father's Day is chosen or work ahead and do 4th of July like I did or any other holiday celebrated in your country.

This is the ID badge for HIMCR. Use the link to get all the details about guidelines and deadlines to participate in the current challenge, link to the prize sponsor, links to the design team creations (this week only 2 other team members are there; mine might be added late), and much more for paper crafting enthusiasts.www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2018/04/himcr-350-any-holiday.html

My Besties ID sponsor badge is shown above. They've got a darling cutesy style that just makes me fall in love with each image I see. I just had a lot of creative fun coordinating Curly Jean to be my little USA cheerleader (or party girl)! Fun!!

My card shown above at the top of the post was loosely based on this sketch. This card sketch layout suggestion was shared in the Facebook group "100 Pattern Papers Challenge". One of the group members shared at least one scrapbook and one card layout ideas each week. The group's purpose is to get members motivated to use their stash of patterned papers and not be hoarders. There are monthly challenges and periodic additional challenges. Everyone encourages each other to try to use at least 100 patterned papers from their stockpile(s) within a year. You can do more than that if you wish. So pull some papers that can be new or old and start using them! 

Here's a link to a part of Page Maps website that focuses on card layout sketches and samples referred to as Card Maps: http://www.pagemaps.com/cardmaps

Hopefully the HIMCR blog owner will add my card photo to the design team section of the post sometime soon but if not it will be shared only from here for my Facebook friends and with Google + friends.

My husband was hospitalized on Friday night at same time as the design team deadline for getting the newest inspirations to the blog to be shared on Saturday afternoon. I completed my card Sunday afternoon with some of it done by his bedside and the rest using a small dining table in a family waiting room area. He walked there with me to sit and watch birds in a small aviary in that room while I completed my card. And now it is Monday night when this blog should have been made and posted on Saturday. Oh, well, sometimes little or big life moments cause us to rearrange our schedules in unexpected ways. 

This is his 5th hospitalization since late October, so please add him to your prayers. He's only got 1 bypass graft open in his heart from surgery back in March 1998 is what we learned in October. He's had 4 mild heart attacks and 1 "episode" as reasons for these hospitalizations. We are so grateful for these extensions of life given my God and modern medicine. I'm praying I'll have him around to aggravate me for some more years! :) Becca