Mermaid Kisses

With limited space onboard, I had to very sadly leave all my distress oxide inks at home. I did, however, make a few backgrounds to bring with me - I'm pretty sure that won't surprise you. Today I used one of those for a card. Here tis:

Firstly I cut it with the double-stitched framelit then attached the outer piece to my card base with mounting tape before dry embossing the centre panel and attaching it flat. This particular background was done on watercolour paper, so the embossed lines are nice and deep. I then stamped and coloured the mermaid and seahorse, using drops of re-inker to colour with rather than my usual ink pads; this gives a much bolder intensity of colour. For the seaweed I've combined dies from Smooth Sailing and Under the Sea in vellum and card, all attached with my fine-tip glue pen.

Materials used:

• stamps - Mermaid Kisses (SugarPea Designs)
• card - Pacific point, watercolour, granny apple green, daffodil delight, vellum
• dies - Smooth Sailing, Under the Sea
• other - seaside embossing folder, Big Shot, Dimensionals, distress oxide inks, ink blender, fine tip glue pen, aqua painter, ink refills, scissors, mounting tape, double stitched rectangle framelits (Scrapdragon), sequins

Only problem is now I've got distress oxide withdrawal! Lol.

Thanks for swimming by.

Cheers

Kez

Setting Sail

I was fortunate last night to attend a workshop given by local Dutch demonstrator Danielle Bennenk and spent a most enjoyable three hours in crafting companionship. Our project was a mini album using the Come Sail Away suite of products - how fortuitous was that? Full instructions and plenty of materials were provided to make and decorate the album, which I finished off at 'home' today.

Here's how my front cover turned out:

And on the inside are three parts for adding photos, ephemera and journalling. On the left a semi-pocket that opens up; in the middle three 'waterfall' flaps; and on the right, a small twist-and-pop surprise that I thought was brilliant.

Embellishments on the inside pages need to be kept reasonably flat, of course, to ensure nothing is damaged by bulky bits and bobs.

Materials used:

• stamps - Sailing Home
• card - whisper white, soft suede, Sahara sand, night of navy, balmy blue, Come Sail Away DSP
• inks - night of navy, soft suede, Sahara sand
• other - Big Shot, circle punches, bakers twine, metallic gold pearl, corner rounder punch, Dimensionals, fine tip glue, Tombow glue, Smooth Sailing dies

I love it and can't wait to furnish it with memories from our holiday here. Thanks so much to Danielle for a great evening - you can visit her blog HERE.

Thanks for sailing by.

Cheers
Kez

Simple Monochromatic Sailing

Sitting out on the aft deck and admiring the myriad of boat styles around us, it's significant to note that the most common colour for sails and hulls by far is...white. Often with a touch of blue, admittedly, and even the occasional smidge of burgundy, but above all else is white. Which is why I've been bemused when colouring stamped images on recent cards.

Of course, the reason why I've been colouring them is that they've usually been stamped on a white background and naturally white on white doesn't show up very well. Still, it's something that has had me pondering. Today I put action to those ponders and came up with a way for white sails and white hull to look more impactful, and here's the outcome.

Love the co-ordinates behind the yacht.

Materials used:

• stamps - Sailing Home
• card - basic grey, whisper white, Kaisercraft designer paper
• other - stitched rectangle framelit, Big Shot, mounting tape, fine tip glue, white gel pen, Sahara sand marker

To quote Kath and Kim, "it's nice, it's different, it's unusual", lol. Thanks for sailing by.

Cheers

Kez