This week at Passion for Promarkers, their 100th challenge is ‘red, white and blue plus a charm’. It’s taken a few days of mulling over, and an hour in the construction, but here is my card. I didn’t want to go down the flag route and remembered bowling shoes the last time I was at the ten-pin skittles alley – you know the ones… laces that are too long, and they feel like clown shoes. They fit the challenge perfectly. The charm laced onto the shoe is ‘live’ – bound to encourage a bowling aficionado.

Pens used (second colour used for shading):
Reds: Crimson/Burgundy
Blues: French Navy/Prussian
Greys: Cool Greys 1 & 3
Inner: Ivory/Satin
White: Mitsubishi Signo broad tip gel pen

Next time I make it, I will set the eyelets before I stick the coloured sections to the card… Firstly I cut the right shape from a DL card, making sure to keep sections of the crease intact. I glued the tip of the tongue section to the top of the shoe, and then used foam pads at the flappy end of the tongue to give depth. Each coloured section was cut out, shaded and stuck down (and then I needed to get the eyelets in….).  The shoelaces are household string – had I left more time, I would have got some cord shoelaces, as the normal laces I’d bought were too wide. I wrapped the string ends in clear tape before cutting them to avoid splitting.

And for those that are sceptical, here is a photo of the card standing up 😉  To stop it toppling forward due to the weight of the laces, I skimmed a very thin wedge off the back fold so that the card leans slightly backwards when the card is open.