Anchors Aweigh

When my eldest son asked me to make a last minute birthday card for a friend of his, I immediately thought of this fab sketch again from Julie Aston.  If you haven't already, pop over to WMSC111 and check out the inspiration from the DT and Michief Makers.

As with the last card I made for one of his friends, my son wanted an anchor in the design (it's an "in" thing with his group of friends which he seemed reluctant to elaborate upon).  My Island seemed an obvious choice, however I had to be careful it wasn't too similar to the previous card I had made for a member of his group - also using My Island with a purple and yellow plaid background.

In the end I opted for an alcohol inked background using Pool, Cool Peri and Sandal alcohol inks, overstamped with a variety of shells.  

I adore stamps to do with the sea so I have quite a lot of shell stamps.  I picked a few that were similar in size and style and randomly stamped these using Jet Black Archival Ink.

To create the sunset panel, I stamped the solid background stamp from My Island twice horizontally with a lighter blue on top.  I then stamped the sunset rays upright (as it was intended) in Spiced Marmalade  and upside down (to give the impression of reflection on the water) using Peach Bellini.  I then trimmed the rectangle to fit the width of the sunset rays.  The sandy beach was stamped with the base stamp (usually used to stamp the water) in Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed (in order to cover the blue underneath).

I then stamped the umbrella and the beach hut  on the "sand" with Archival ink.

I stamped part of the solid background stamp from My Island onto a scrap of white card using the same blue as the ocean, and overstamped this with a sentiment from Asian Gardens, attaching it to the side of the sunset panel.

I cut a teal coloured A4 sheet of card down to create the DL base card and used the leftover piece to die cut a Tessatina border.  I coloured some twine with Broken China DI and wrapped this around the card twice and attached the anchor with a brad.  The anchor was die cut using a sizzlit die.  I then partially covered it with versamark and embossed with a Verdigris embossing powder to give the impression of barnacles.

This card was a lot of fun to make!  Hope you enjoy it too !