Happy July 1st everyone!  Connie Nichol here with a patriotic red and white Canada Day layout.  I was briefly tempted to use non-traditional colours, but just couldn’t do it.  LOL

I used the July Canadian Scrapbooker sketchy challenge sketch as a starting point.  It looks like this:

I decided to start with a base of Core’Dinations Spotted cardstock.  It looks so lovely and textured, especially when you sand a tiny bit off of the top.

The other day I saw that Rhonda Steed had some free Canada day printables up on her blog (hot link www.rhondasteed.com) and I was totally inspired to use a couple of these project life typecards as part of my layout.

Then, instead of reaching for patterned paper strips to follow the July sketch, I decided to use a variety of May Arts ribbon.  Sometimes ribbon is a pain to adhere to a layout, especially skinny ribbon, so I pulled out my Xyron create a Sticker machine and turned those ribbons into ribbon stickers.

Voila.  Self-adhesive ribbon that is so easy to use.

A Canada Day layout also surely needs a maple leaf as an embellishment, so I used this beautiful Sizzix Bigz die to cut a large leaf out of cardstock, then embossed it with a Sizzix embossing folder and brushed it with ink to bring out some of the texture.

Supplies:  Core’Dinations cardstock, May Arts ribbon, Sizzix die and embossing folder, Xyron Create A Sticker machine, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L tape runner and foam adhesive, Clearsnap ink, EK Success punches, Basic Grey alphabet stickers, Brother sewing machine, printables from www.rhondasteed.com.