Underwater World

Hi to everyone, and I hope you are having a good Easter weekend.  The card I have chosen to show you today uses a technique that is not a new one, but which is new to me, and uses tissue paper to give a nice textured surface.  The stamps are a set from Crafty Individuals - Seaside Treasures  from which I used some of the shells and starfish, a sentiment and the lovely seahorse.

To start the background I used a scrap/snippet of white card, and a snippet of tissue paper which I scrunched up, opened back out and stuck with a wet glue to the card trying not to flatten it out too much.  I used a selection of inks to colour - Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass and Peacock Feathers, and Adirondack Ink - Lettuce, and Memento Inks - Nautical Blue and Bamboo Leaves.  The shells and starfish were stamped on to snippets of white card using Memento - London Fog and coloured with inks and a water brush using the Nautical Blue and Adirondack - Sunshine Yellow, and for the seahorses I used the Sunshine yellow and DI - Spiced Marmalade, and a little Nautical Blue.  These inks were well watered down to keep the colours reasonably light so they harmonise but don't merge into the background too much.  I cut all the pieces out and before placing I decided to darken the bottom area with a bit more of the dark blue to the bottom and the sides, and added some touches of the green to look a bit like underwater foliage.  Luckily the Memento ink pads are triangular which makes it easy to use the ink straight from the pad.  As a final touch I used a Letraset fine line pen to add a little more definition to the background and to the seahorses etc.  I added the sentiment using Memento - Tuxedo Black.

Finally I glued the seahorses and shells etc. using Pinflair Glue Gel, and looking at it again I thought some bubbles might look good.  When showing my DH the card he said he didn't think seahorses blew bubbles, but I think they add something to the finished look.   I don't know what you think, but I quite like the effect although mine are not as stylish and beautiful as those Ryn produces, but for a first try I think they are ok.  There is a rather dark area on the left where I overdid the blue shading rather, and sometimes it's knowing when to stop messing with something and to call it done, but overall I'm happy with it.

Hopefully I will have a bit more time this week and it won't be so long between posts.  Anyway, thank you for stopping by today and taking an interest in my meanderings.

Pat x

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop where we have to use some scraps/snippets, which I have on this card.
Crafty Individuals - Nature's Beauty.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Animal Antics.  They did say including birds and insects, so hopefully my seahorses will count as well.