Off To The Open Sea

It's difficult to think about going to the beach when we, in the southern hemisphere are in the depths of winter, but they don't call these challenges for nothing, do they? I can remember the bracing walks I used to go on, along the beach when my boys were youngsters. They loved the stormy weather with high tides and large waves! I just liked taking them out for exercise so they would give me some peace and quiet later.
I've used The Open Sea stamp set here, and Top Note Bigz Die to stamp the image on. The background stamped on Coastal Cabana is a ship's log. Behind the sailing boat, I used an easy watercoloring technique. Scribble with Stampin' Write markers onto an acrylic block, spray with water, then 'stamp' onto card. It is more subtle than I'd hoped for. I had fun with the twine and button, just something a little different.
So, Nance at the Paper Players set the Beach Challenge.
Over at the Friday Mashup the challenge was for a watercolor wash. Maybe I should have used water color paper, I went with Stampin' Up! Naturals White this time.

Hope you're having a good week,

Rachel

Nautical but Nice

I have limited stamps for a nautical theme, but Stampin' Up! stamp set The Open Sea is in my stash. I think I will invest in the  new Traveler stamp set very soon too, I had intended to buy it on my pre-order, but somehow left it off!!! How could that happen?

Just Add Ink challenged us to use the retiring colours for one last time and I grabbed Midnight Muse, Summer Starfruit and Primrose Petals. Oh, you should have seen the mess I got myself into with that!!! I inked up a large acrylic stamp block by wiping the ink pads across the surface and then I soaked watercolour paper and sprayed the acrylic block too so the ink was running all about. I love the shades it makes when the colours run together. It makes such a glorious sunset background for the sailing boat and then I felt it needed to have 'Live the Life You've Imagined' from Really Good Greetings.

This would be a great Bon Voyage or retirement card, I think. I remember in 2011, my husband and I took our first overseas trip together, including a 10 day Mediterranean cruise. A highlight was visiting Santorini, a picturesque Greek island which involves being brought ashore by tender. When it was time to return to the ship, I was thrilled to bits to be among the group who were taken on a sailing boat (with engine!!!) which looked very much like this one, it was a magical moment.

This card also fits really well with The Card Concept challenge of a nautical theme.
I followed some online instructions for this sailor's knot which I tied using some of the Summer Starfruit Bakers Twine from SALE-A-BRATION, isn't it great? And I did remember to pre-order all the Project Life I was allowed and the greeting was cut with Project Life Cards and Labels Framelits, there are some handy shapes in that pack. The arrow shaped paper clip is from Hung Up Cute Clips and the Labels Collection Framelits cut out the shaped panel.

Happy stamping!
Rachel


Australian readers - You can shop for lots of supplies in my online shop, there's only 12 days till the mini Occasions catalogue and main catalogue finish. Plenty of retiring bargains and weekly specials too.

Hostess code C2KVNKJJ

Classes for watercolouring available if you are near to South Morang (Melbourne) VIC

Thursday 17th July 7.00pm - 10.00pm

Friday 25th July 7.00pm - 10.00pm

Saturday 2nd August 2.00pm - 5.00pm (daytime)

In the Direction for CCMC251

I'm always being asked for cards for men and boys, it seems to be a challenge for everyone to make something for the fellas in their lives. I haven't made this with anyone in particular in mind, so it will just go into my stash of cards, for now.

I've used two retiring stamp sets, Word Play for the greeting and Up Up and Away for the hot air balloon. (I'm going to miss both of those sets so badly!)

The other stamp set with the map of world and compass stamps is The Open Sea, which is sticking around, thank goodness! I've seen sneak peeks of a LARGE stamp, same size as Swallowtail,  which is a map too, looks great!

I used Basic Gray, Bravo Burgundy (retiring) and Gumball Green card, with the addition to those colours of some Crumb Cake and Garden Green in the inks. The Bravo Burgundy went through the Big Shot inside the Chevron folder for just a bit of texture, doesn't really show in the  first photo, might be better in the next one.

For inspiration, I went over to Create with Connie and Mary, and used this sketch.


Hope you've enjoyed dropping by, I've loved having you call in,
See you
Rachel

CCMC209 - The Open Sea and Word Play

I haven't had time for a challenge for a while, but this little sketch from Create with Connie and Mary appealed to me and I have been planning to use a greeting stamp for a special birthday card, so began with this sketch this afternoon.

I chose to use Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake and Vanilla and began by stamping the map of the world from The Open Sea in Crumb Cake onto the Vanilla card. I then inked up the greeting from Word Play, using markers to pick out the different words in different colours. There are 12 great large greeting stamps in the Word Play stamp set, (Page 104) this greeting says " go confidently in the direction of your dreams" which is a great one for someone about to turn 30, who lives his life very energetically! I mounted the vanilla onto Crumb cake and then stamped the card base, and a scrap of cherry cobbler with the ledger stamp from The Open Sea, and used the splodges from French Foliage as well as the compass from The Open Sea on the strip of not quite navy. I have only notched one end of that strip. Now when I came to put it all together, I couldn't layer it exactly like the sketch, maybe I need to make the card a bit bigger! I took the liberty of staggering the layers so all were visible.

Sailors Knot

I think this knot is really called the Reef knot or Square knot, but when The Open Sea stamp set was released, I looked up on the internet how to tie knots. It looks so good with stamps from this set, especially the sailing ship, but I still have to sit with the diagram in front of me, following each step very carefully!

However, for this special birthday card, it is certainly worth the trouble, and I used the strip of cherry cobbler to emphasise it. Hope you like my card, there is still a short time left to play along too.

Cheers,

Rachel