salamat (thank you)

For the next week or so, most of the cards I'm going to make will be sent to my friend, Junard, in the Philippines.  We met in February when I was in General Santos City, the Philippines' southernmost city, for a medical mission.  He was one of the brains behind the whole mission -- doing lots of outreach and testing of patients -- so that by the time the volunteers like myself showed up, everything was very neat and organized.  Junard did a fantastic job, and although this is very very late, I would like to say salamat (thank you).

I'm submitting this card to the Runway Inspired Challenge; for this week's challenge we have to make a card using the bold and graphic photo below as our inspiration.  I'm also submitting this card to Retrosketches, so I designed my card to fit this week's sketch also seen below. 

 

I focused on the grey and black pants and pulled in the yellow from the model's top to match the bars in the sketch.

Using paper strips and having a more modern look isn't really my style, but I kind of dig this card.  Its masculine and it's multilingual!!!  That's pretty exciting to me.  I haven't seen any sentiments in Tagalog (one of the many Philippine languages) available for purchase, so I made my own with Mama Elephant's Midnight Letters.

I sent Junard a message to let him know that I finally made him a card (better late than never, right?) and he informed me that General Santos City was celebrating its annual Tuna Festival.  I so wish I could be there!!!  Aggggh!!! The week that I was there for the medical mission, I probably ate the most tuna and the best tuna I've ever had.  Ever.

Here's a photo from the early morning fish market where we watched fisherman haul these gigantic tuna from the sea and off their boats.  It was fascinating and somewhat terrifying...to guarantee freshness, the men sprinted off their boats to have their fish weighed, assessed for quality, and then auctioned to the highest bidder.  If you didn't watch where you were going, you could have gotten smacked by a big ol' fish.

   

Supplies:

Stamps: Mama Elephant Midnight Letters

Inks: Memento (tuxedo black)

Other: sequins, patterned and solid paper