Mermaid Birthday Card

Happy Sunday! Today I wanted to share a whimsical birthday card I made for someone who loves Disney's The Little Mermaid. It's my favorite Disney movie as well so it was fun to pay homage to such an iconic character.

When I purchased this cute Newton's Nook stamp set, I just knew I had to make one of the mermaids look like Ariel. I started by stamping the image on some X-Press cardstock using My Favorite Things black licorice hybrid ink. I then ran the image through my ScanNCut2 machine. No more fussy cutting for me! I'm still amazed at how it cuts so close and perfectly.

After coloring the mermaid with Copic markers, I went to work on the card base. I had an idea to have her swimming in a shaker window. To accomplish this, I created a shaker pocket with my Fuse tool and filled it with blue, iridescent, clear and some ocean themed sequins. I used a large stitched circle die to cut a hole in the front of the card base and also in another piece of blue cardstock to cover the inside of the card so the back of my shaker pocket wouldn't show.

To complete the front of the card, I daubed on some blue ink around the edges of the circle to give it a little dimension. I then stamped some bubbles in Versamark ink and heat embossed them in clear. It gave them a little shine and really pops in person. Here's a close-up:

Next it was time to create the inside scene. I blended a couple of blue distress inks to create an ocean like background. I then grabbed a wave stencil and placed it over the card panel. I used a baby wipe to remove some of the ink from the places where I wanted to create waves. I love using this technique because you get a soft look that's perfect for ocean scenes. I built up a little sea floor using several different green inks and the seaweed stamp in the set. I adhered my mermaid making sure she was visible in the front panel. My last few touches were adding a sentiment, some bubbles and a little Wink of Stella for some shimmer.

I really liked the way the card turned out and I think the recipient will too! It's just plain fun! Since it's a birthday card, I thought I'd enter it into the Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes challenge. Be sure to check out the other great entries below!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week!

Newton's Nook Designs MERMAID CROSSING Clear Stamp Set 20150802 Copic BLENDING CARD X-Press It Paper Pack of 10 My Favorite Things BLACK LICORICE Hybrid Ink Pad MFT Copic SKETCH 72 PC SET A Markers AAAS72A Brother ScanNCut2 Home and Hobby Cutting Machine with Rhinestone Trial Kit Stampin' Up Heat Tool Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK PAD Watermark VM-001 Ranger Embossing Powder SUPER FINE CLEAR Detail EPJ37385 Simon Says Stamp Card Stock 100# AUDREY BLUE AB19 Lil' Inker Designs STITCHED MATS: CIRCLE DIE Set LILD125 We R Memory Keepers EUROPEAN VOLTAGE PHOTO SLEEVE FUSE Tool 662533 Avery Elle STAMP STORAGE POCKETS SS25 25 Quantity Pretty Pink Posh SPARKLING CLEAR MIX Cupped Sequins Darice 5MM CRYSTAL IRIDESCENT Sequins 10043-8 Martha Stewart IRIDESCENT HEARTS AND STARS GLITTER SET 40-34006 6mm Ocean Spray Sequins Little Mermaid Confetti 1.2oz Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad SALTY OCEAN Ranger TDP40132 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad PEACOCK FEATHERS Ranger TDP40064 Simon Says Stamp Stencil WAVES ssst121357 This is the Life Simon Says Stamp Premium Dye Ink Pad LUCKY ink056 Splash of Color Simon Says Stamp Premium Dye Ink Pad JELLYBEAN ink044 The Color of Fun *Simon Says Stamp Premium Dye Ink Pad GREEN LEAF ink011 *ZIG Wink of Stella GLITTER CLEAR Brush Tip Marker 025320

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Ferris Wheel Engagement Card

Happy Sunday! It's been a couple months since I've done a proper blog post but I've been sharing lots of cards over on my Instagram. I'm going to try and get better with conventional blogging so I thought this would be the perfect card to share! Plus it's a great fit for the current Lawnscaping Challenge - Celebration! I recently had a friend request a card for someone who got engaged on a Ferris wheel. I immediately knew that I had to use the Lawn Fawn Admit One stamp set and that I wanted to play around with some ink blending. Here's what I came up with:

I started with some Tim Holtz Distress watercolor cardstock. I find I get the best ink blending results when I use this paper. It seems like it just blends so much easier. I grabbed four different colors of distress ink, a mini round ink blending tool and got to work creating my sunset. I started by making small circles of each ink color with the darkest purple on top and the lightest yellow towards the bottom. Once I laid down all the colors, I went back over each blended area with the appropriate colors to ensure it was a very smooth blend from top to bottom.

Next, I moved onto my Ferris wheel. Since it was such a small image, I kept the Copic coloring fairly simple using only two colors for each bucket and a few cool grays for the infrastructure. I then fussy cut the entire image including the inside of the spokes. My craft knife came in very handy for those tricky little place. Lastly, I ran a black marker around the image edge to make sure it looked perfect.

I used a Lawn Fawn stitched hillside border die for the hill and wrapped some green twine around it before adhering it to the blended piece. I then attached the little Ferris wheel. I felt that it really needed to be grounded. I had envisioned a sunset so I figured out where my shadow would go and I drew out a loose outline using some light warm gray Copics. For the finishing touches, I heat embossed a sentiment and used some sparkling clear sequins for a little bit of bling. All of this was then adhered to a top folding 110 lbs white card stock panel.

Here's a close-up:

I really like how bright and cheery this card turned out. Sometimes everything comes together so easily and the vision you have in your head comes to life. Don't you just love it when that happens!

I'm participating in the Lawnscaping Challenge - Celebration! Be sure to go check out some of the amazing entries below. I'm always so inspired by the creative ideas these folks come up with.

Thank you for stopping by and I promise I'll be back soon! Have a great week!

Lawn Fawn ADMIT ONE Clear Stamps Lawn Fawn HAPPY WEDDING Clear Stamps LF887 *Tim Holtz DISTRESS WATERCOLOR CARDSTOCK Ranger Ink TDA39549 Ranger MINI ROUND INK BLENDING TOOLS IBT40965 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad SEEDLESS PRESERVES Ranger TDP40156 RESERVE Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad ABANDONED CORAL Ranger TDP46769 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad SPICED MARMALADE Ranger TDP40187 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad WILD HONEY Ranger TDP40293 Copic BLENDING CARD X-Press It Paper Pack of 10 Copic SKETCH 72 PC SET A Markers AAAS72A EK Success CUTTER BEE Scissors EKCB01 Memento TUXEDO BLACK MARKER Dual Tip Tsukineko PM-900 Martha Stewart CRAFT KNIFE M281019 Simon Says Stamp Card Stock 100# GREEN LEAF GL11 stitched hillside borders RESERVE Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad LUCKY CLOVER Ranger TDP47384 Doodlebug PRIMARY ASSORTMENT Doodle Twine Simon Says Stamp WHITE CARDSTOCK 120 LB Base Weight 12 Pack *Pretty Pink Posh 4MM SPARKLING CLEAR Cupped Sequins Tsukineko VersaFine ONYX BLACK Ink Pad VF-82 Ranger Embossing Powder SUPER FINE CLEAR Detail EPJ37385

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