Black and White Bubbles

First of all, many thanks to those who answered the question on the last post about what you want to see on Simplicity. Today's post has design explanation, personal stuff, and a dog picture...the big triad of your requests! Read only what interests you.

The Card

Today's card was inspired by the coasters in THIS PIN. The simplicity of the white circles with black outline images captured my attention, and the card rose out of that. 

I experimented with different size circles and different proportions of cards. The background rectangle was sitting on my desk, and it's embossed with a woodgrain plate from Hero Arts. It's subtle (I couldn't quite capture it in the photos) but adds a bit of interest. The long rectangle base and woodgrain strip ground the bubbles and follow the "angles love curves" rule. Whenever your card has too many curves, add some angles; too many angles, add some curves. 

After dorking around with placement for a bit, I settled on this arrangement. The three stamped circles form an irregular triangle, with the sentiment toward the bottom to add some weight to the bottom and let it feel as if the other circles are rising up.  

Note too that the bottom leaf is pointing toward the sentiment, which is overlapped by the middle leaf, which is pointing up to the top leaf, which is pointing to the edge of the card. "Open the card," it's saying! Inside, I stamped a happy birthday sentiment. 

This feels like an excellent card for a man. It's high contrast, bold, and not flowery! The leaves are from Stampa Rosa, very old and precious! Sentiment is from Papertrey.

The Personal Stuff

Today is Father's Day, and that's always a weird day for me. My earthly father and I haven't spoken in over 36 years (and that's a blessing), but on the other hand, I had a grandfather and uncle who stepped up and served as amazing father figures during my formative years. 

So a really cool coincidence happened. Yesterday morning, I was out walking, heard an old airplane flying over, looked up, and a B-29 (WWII-era bomber) was overhead flying low over the neighborhood. Cool! Later that day, George told me that a B-24 was also in the area. They were open for tours on Father's Day at the Springfield, OH, airport. 

So what was the coincidence? Well, my wonderful grandfather, David Lee Willis, was a pilot during WWII and during the Berlin Airlift. He flew both of these types of bombers...among other planes. The B-24, he flew in combat in the China-Burma-India theater...over the Hump of the Himalayas. 

My handsome Papa

One of his planes was called the Dippy Dave and His 8 Dippy Diddlers. The Dippy Dave was shot up pretty bad and leaking fuel as it returned from a bombing mission. The crew had to bail out over China. Dippy Dave was the last man out...as was appropriate since he was the pilot. All the crew got back to base safely. 

The Dippy Dave is commemorated in a book on Vintage WWII Nose Art. 

So today, I stood in the cockpit of a B-24, behind the pilot's seat. 

Sadly, they wouldn't let me sit in the seat, but it's a good thing Papa wasn't a big man because there wasn't much room there. 

What a treat to have that connection. There's a B-24 called The Strawberry B*tch at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB here in Dayton, but it's a static display with no option to get inside. Only two B-24s are still airworthy, and now I can say I've been in one. 

Like I said, cool!

Dog Picture

And now, a gratuitous dog picture. 

Cooper...the Good Boy

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan