Whale Hello There

Two nautical posts in one day! Can you tell I'm gearing up to be on the boat? Lol.

I've made another project to decorate our boat - and replace the *cough* 'artwork' that was left behind by the previous owners. I really wanted to (a) use a distress oxide background, and (b) try out a new stamp set bought a few weeks ago. The biggest stamp in the set is rather large (it's 15cm long and 8cm high), so I began with an A4 sized sheet of heavyweight watercolour paper then cut it down a little. The open edges of my Stamparatus came in very handy to fit this mammoth piece in!

There's still a frame to find for it, but here it is so far:

Materials used:

• stamps - Whale Nautical Series (Pink Ink Designs)
• card - basic black, 425gsm watercolour paper
• distress oxide inks - peacock feathers, mermaid lagoon, blueprint sketch, wilted violet (for the sea); tumbled glass, stormy sky, faded jeans, antique linen, tea dye (for the whales)
• other - blender tools, water spritzer, glitter epoxy dots, Stamparatus, sticky strip, clear embossing powder, heat tool

I stamped the whale images on the background piece and again on a separate sheet of watercolour paper using black craft ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. They're hand cut and attached using strong adhesive after I coloured them, again using DO inks. Using the thicker watercolour paper gives more strength to the background but also dimension to the stamped whales - they almost look like they're popping off the paper! I used more images from the set - the bubbles and swirls - on my background, added some glitter epoxy dots and sponged around the outside edges with night of navy ink.

I must admit I'm in two minds about the swirls - I think they make it a little more whimsical than I would have liked - but the space looked bare and unfinished without them, so...what are you gonna do?

Can't wait to see this hanging up in situ. Only 15 more sleeps until I leave!

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kez