Oh, It Feels Sooooooo Good!

I am so excited to have stamped today. My kids had fun and I got to stamp -- amazing. A friend asked me to come over and said I should bring some stamping stuff, so I did. Then, she couldn't stamp because she had a sick pet rat she was holding (the poor fellah is almost 3 and he might be dying...) but she encouraged me to work. And... I had an assignment. My only uncle is turning 70-something... so my Dad gave me the nudge that a card was in order. I am terrible about these things, but getting better!

I saw this set and HAD to have it. I went and searched it out on SCS, as it was retired. I don't regret it one bit -- HA -- I need more stamps like a hole in the head, but man -- finding a good, masculine set is TOUGH to do. I mean, my dad isn't a tool guy or a golf guy or a fishing guy -- but he does sail (and yeah, he is beginning to golf a bit more...) and he does sail with his brother... so I had tracked down this set last year, and this is the first time I got to play with it!


Now the deets: First off, this is a Joy-Fold card. I love the interest it ads to have a card open in some unusual way. It gets attention right off the bat, and this card is so easy to cut and assemble. I also like the way you can get a light surface for writing your sentiment inside, and frame it in the dark color all at once... so clever!

I stamped the image from the now retired SU set (ok, the set is still in the car and I am too lazy to go out to get the name, but I will find it and edit this post later... just so freakin' excited to get it up here ) in Bayou Blue (loving that color!) on whisper white card stock, and then let it dry very well before coloring with my watercolor pencils... using my aquapainter only many hours later to blend the colors. I admit to having a couple of sets of watercolor pencils, as the SU set doesn't have a good flesh color and my other set does... so I used some of both sets for this card.

I added some sparkle to the water using my Sakura stardust pen, but it is hard to see. I double-matted the image on Bordering Blue and Not Quite Navy, and adhered that to Barely Banana. The base is Not Quite Navy. This is where I got a little "lazy" and didn't have time -- I was thinking of doing some distressing to the edges with my cutter tool, and sponging the punchouts with the hardware, but it didn't happen. If I do this card again, which I might, I will do that for sure ;^)*

I pulled out the Hodgepodge Hardware in antique copper, and the designer label punch with the small oval punch, too. The twill tape was colored with my newly aquired markers in Bordering Blue -- I love how it brought out the grain in the ribbon... and it was much neater than running it over a pad ;^)*

Then I raced out to photograph it in the fading light so I could post it here and send it off on its way tomorrow -- to get to my Uncle David late, but still helping him to know that I was thinking of him... and I had soooooo much fun making it!