Home » Posts tagged 'mermaid'
I enjoyed making the previous card and loved the outcome so much, that I wanted to repeat the recipy: choose which one of the four colours will be the accent color, and choosing 1 or 2 as main background colours. The other colour is used for colouring. The colours I used were the ones from the Chocolate Baroque challenge 34.
My computer gave up a few weeks ago and, after getting new parts, was restored to a point in january. I am sure I’ve posted some of the next cards allready, but can’t find proof… Then probably it was only on facebook. (Or just because they’ve been waiting to go online for several months?)
PC is fixed now, and in a better spot in my house which means I can sit rather comfortably behind it, and all the diseases are slowly diminishing.
I’ve visited the Art Specially Event in Nijkerk at the 10th of April, and ofcourse didn’t stick to my budget. Which means I now own a small round gelliplate and pan pastels. I couldn’t remember at the event WHY I didn’t get it before or what had put me off, but I did remember as I was playing around with them at home. It means a new range of products I am going to need to collect…. It’s probably my subconscious trying to keep feeding the addiction, as I have told myself I’ve got enough stamps and cannot get more. Still many many uses with the ones I’ve got. So I am only allowed to get materials that are used up. Like glue and the new distress inks, markers. I didn’t intend to get new media… really…
Ofcourse now you expect a post about my experiments with it – but alas, as I’ve said this is about older cards from before my trip to Nijkerk. (It was a strange trip. No constant talking in the car, no questions, no ” Mom,..Mom..Momm!). It was strange. I thought I’d love it, sing out loud with my music, feel “free”, but it wasn’t like that. The music didn’t do the trick. My mind was still going everywhere and nowhere. Probably because I had an extremely busy week I was a bit numb. The event was good, I participated in a take and make (gelliplate and pan pastels…) and got my mojo back. I hadn’t been crafting in a few weeks due to ” reasons” (had moved my crafting supplies and wasn’t sure I liked the new storage, not used to it, not wanting to make a mess (tired), got a cold etc..)
I’m digressing, again.
Cards…
Made with cutoffs from other cards. Glue them on cardstock, add some finish to it (I used Mod Podge decoupage glue) and stamp a sentiment on it.
This one has been almost finished for a year or more. I had just the panel with the mermaid, not sure if I had put the dots (paper pen dots) in the swirls then, that might have been a later addition. All I did to finish it is (maybe add the dots and) frame it… Chocolate Baroque mermaid and Designs by Ryn swirls and School of Fish.
Chocolate Baroque text and Sweet Pea Stamps (discontinued) Meredith Dillman’s Lady in Green. Stamped onto a background made with acryllic pewter paint.
The reverse stamp of a stencil of Designs by Ryn onto glossy cardstock, and one of her Colibries.
Also reverse stamp of a stencil (Hibiscus) onto clossy cardstock and a Hummingbird. Text is from the Boadicea sheet from Indigo Blue
Text is from Quietfire Designs, background stencil is Japanese Anemone from Designs by Ryn, and the dove is from a dove/pear themed Chocolate Baroque stampsheet.
Art Journey stamps against a pewter and silver acryllic paint mix background.
Hmm I’ve shown this one, haven’t I? Or only on facebook? In that case: It’s the Queen of Hearts by Rachel Anderson from Sweet Pea Stamps (discontinued). Crackle backround is Indigo Blue. The pinkish background is a leftover piece from a year ago.
The leftover piece on which the queen of hearts is stamped is from this set of cards, I even mentioned in the post I saved it (it’s the piece of paper I cleaned my brush on…)
Trying out that beautiful blending I see on many of the Lavinia cards. This looks quite ok but is not entirely right, it’ s missing a branch or something at the top. All stamps are Lavinia stamps, and the treetrunk is stamped twice to create a higher treetrunk (the stamp is only half the cardheight size).
And now, in gallery form and with some more detail pictures:
It’s raining again today. Very appropriate for the next watery cards.
Raindrops stamp is from Designs by Ryn, as are the mermaid, origami lily and crane. Backgrounds are made with TCW stencils in the first two cards. Not sure how I made the background in the last card, could be bister and a stencil. The text in the last card is from Indigo Blue. (I think, from the Boadicea set). Cards have a tiny bit of white gelpen and stickles accents
I made this card for a challenge, but I forgot that I had to include certain stamps /materials sold in that shop, so my card wasn’t suitable. Still a nice card, where I experimented again with aluminium foil. ( I seem not to really get past the experimenting fase with it, I still haven’t really got a clue how to best use it).
Made in september 2013
Used up some stash here as well. Gear dies, Nellie Snellen multiframe die, a Joy! craft or marianne design die, 2 sizzix embossing folderss, maybe some tissue paper (beneath the lightbulb), the lightbulb stamp is from de stempelwinkel if I’m correct, and distress ink, ranger copper spray (can’t be bothered to look up the correct name now, but I love that one!) coper acryllic paint and/or copper crackling paint (I love copper – can you tell?)
Designs by Ryn and Chocolate Baroque, my two favourite brands of stamps, and they go well together. I wanted to try out some very vibrant colors together. A mermaid lives in the ocean, and in the ocean fish can be found in lots of different beautiful colors, so why not a mermaid? I love how this turned out. But as you can see, it’s not a card, it’s only a frame. I think it still is, I still need to finish it. Or just mat it onto cardstock, and leave it as is? Maybe add a sentiment?
Tags made using the patio stone stamp from Designs by Ryn and the Three Leaves set- stamps, paper pen and a clear stamp sentiment
I intended to make a series of Minecraft themed Christmas cards, and made stencils to get different colours of the creeper. I could have done this better – if I had taken the time to cut out the stencils out of self adhesive plastic (the kind you put on the window) or even proper stencilling sheets it would have worked better. This was about the last project I made – since jan.6th I had not made cards or sent cards, except for maybe 1 or 2. In 2013 I was very good at sending cards – first half of 2014 I was terrible, but I was so tired. (pregnancy and perparing a move, selling an appartment and renovating both places).
These were about the first cards I made again after my crafting break, birth cards for twin boys. I wasn’t entirely happy with the result, but it was a start in crafting again. I had tried to keep them in the same style as the birth announcement card I had received, but I had no stamps in that style, so I just picked some elements from the card – blue and cloudy. Also, as it were boys I wanted to use my robot emobssing folder finally, and wanted to make 2 seperate cards for them.
(This was a scheduled post)
(Scroll down to see a gallery of about 30 previously unposted cards!)
Well, I’ve been busy again, with lots except cardmaking.
I sent half my relatives&friends christmascards after 4th of January (maybe a handfull got them in time as I brought those with me, but hadn’t finished the rest yet). The other half of the relatives&friends didn’t get a card. Who did or did not get a card was kind of random, I had printed out the adresses on stickers, and just took a card, scanned the list to see who would match with the card, of the other way around.
Before that I was busy with christmas, buying a house, renovating our appartment to put it up for sale, and being pregnant again. I still am, don’t worry, but the most tiring weeks are over, I don’t crash in bed at 20:30hrs anymore. The appartment isn’t up for sale yet, there are still a few renovation works to be done and to be honest, I want to move out before we put it up for sale, as I just don’t want the stress of getting the house in a showroom kind of state, with all sorts of stuff tucked away (where??) and the kids toys not all over the place, and everything clean and spotless. Not to mention, taking the bigger stuff out of the house (oh and the kids) when there would be visitors, things like the stroller(s). So, we’ve also been planning the moving, and some renovations / freshening up in the new house. It doesn’t look like crafting time anytime soon, my crafting stuff is too efficiently tucked away to take it out. (Well, I can get to it, it’s not in boxes, but it’s spread in 3 cupboard which are not near eachother. And as it takes up quite some time, I rather not start crafting untill after I’ve moved.)
I still had lots of unposted cards, so I’ll show you now in almost random order.
Most used stamps: Chocolate Baroque and Design by Ryn.
Most used materials: Distress ink and Caran D’ache (or was it arche?) Neon colors.
Most used technique: stamping (duh), masking, sponging. Some dry and heat embossing as well, and some dies are used.
You’ll see all pictures in the slideshow gallery first, beneath that is the thumbnail gallery. Most cards deserve a bit more spotlight though, as ofcourse details get lost on thumbnail size images :P. Maybe I”ll show them full size in a post another time.
Want to know more details about used materials or how I did it? Just ask, I am be happy to answer!
This card was inspired by a post from Cindy of Plant’s list, who had made a card with the mermaid image. I liked her very much, the style reminded me of cartoons I read when I was younger. I also thought I saw them before, and indeed I saw them in another of Cindy’s blogpost: A few offerings. Now I have probably seen them at other blogs / challenges as well, as I did recognize the name of “A day for Daisies”, which is the shop of the author of the image. So I hopped on over there, and saw it was a freebie this month! wauw! So I loaded my cart full of freebies, and because I kind of feel guilty taking so much free stuff, I also bought this one:
Girls & Play category: Swing in a Snow Globe An image of a beautiful girl swinging peacefully on a swing hanging from a tree, encased inside…
Isn’t that a cute one? I see many possibilities on cards for her. I wanted to use the mermaid image. Although I never had a thing for underwater scenes, always stayed clear of the underwaterness and fishy things, I have recently got a lovely mermaid set from Chocolate Baroque, and got really into the underwater thing. I love it now!
Mermaid A5 Unmounted Rubber stamp Collection Part Number UA5SPUNDERWATER
I searched for some new challenges to participate in, and I came up with one that provided a sketch, one required something new, one that required a quote, and an anything goes challenge.
So I started out with the digital image. I did a test print, and then I printed it on some cardstock background which I had made a while ago, it was purple cardstock with blue distress ink in watery stripes and splots (pressed on it with an acrylic block).
Then I started colouring with blue pencil, but didn’t like how the purple still shone through. I chose blue because she’s after all half fish, and fishes can have any colour. So my mermaids have a variety of skin colours, as I take my inspiration from fish rather then humans. And I don’t know that much about fish, so it’s all imagination, hehe. Anyway, Too much purple. After the pencil, I painted a bit with distress ink (I looooove doing that! just stamp your inkpad on an acryllic block, spritz some water over it, and there’s your “paint”), but it stlil wasn’t entirely right. But I moved on to the hair. Again, pencil and distress ink with water. But still she didn’t pop out enough, so gel pen, and then I took out my acryllic paint, white paint, and made the space around her whiter. Especially the edges, as it’s further away from her. I added some of the paint to a spritz of water, and then smoothed it out on her body and hair. Unfortunately that also covered / wiped out (printer ink isn’t waterproof) some of the details in the hair. But that is no big deal to me. I also altered her eyelid a tiny bit, as she had a slightly arrogant look first which didn’t fit with my idea of her on my card. Perfect for other occasions but not this one.
Next step: A Crafters template (the tree one) to be used as coral on the background card, the paper behind her. I sponged it in a light colour as it had to be very subtle, broken china. Oh wait, tumbled glass, I keep mixing them up. I know I did so in other posts. Next, I wanted the coral / seagrass to be over the mermaid, so I layed her on the card and sponged through it with mossy distress ink (wrong name, I know, but it’s that one colour, that mossy one…) I decided some embossing was needed. I mixed adirondack Stream and Distress shabby shutter powder, and embossed that onto her and the card beneath.
Next the strip on the side, I love that stamp from Design by Ryn. I love all stamps of her which I got, and more :P. That is one strip of paper, from beneath the seashell to the other side of the card. Sort of air bubbles. I knew from after making the embossed seaweed I wanted to use more seaweed, and I thought of my decoration wool and merino wool I had. The merino wool is very soft and actually ment to be used in wetfelting, but I’m not very good at that. I let my sister Kim from Viltalakim do that. I made a background, used a stamp from the previously mentioned Chocolate Baroque set on it, cut it out and placed the wool under and between it. Next was the little rocks. And then I noticed the pearls I have, so I added some to her hair, like she has just found them between the rocks. She forgot one though, can you see it? When gluing the stones to the card I added some glitter as well, also a tiny bit in her hair (remember she just had been digging through the rocks).
This picture taken in the evening with aritifical lighting shows it quite well:
The last part was the quote. My oh my, was it hard to find a good one. I spent like an hour searching for a song I heard (or come across) a while ago through a challenge. But which challenge, and how long ago? I remembered Nick Cave of Kylie Minogue. Some random lyrics I sort of remember “Hands on my chest, filled with my hatred for you. From under here. “A woman lying still under water, seen from under water. A song similar to “Where the wild roses grow”. Eventually I found it. It was “Little Water”, performed by Ute Lemper. The song was a bit too sad though, when and to whom should I give a card with a quote from that song? So on I sought, and then I found a beautiful one.
“Drive into the sea of thought and find there pearls beyond the price”
It was almost perfect, but I suspected the quote wasn’t right. It sounded like bad english, so I search a bit more, and then I found the author and the correct quote:
“Dive into the sea of thought and find there pearls beyond price”
By Ibn Ezra
The first link to it in my searchbox is to quotationspage.com, no idea if the site is thrustworthy so visit at your own risk!
Next I had to search for a font to use, as my handwriting is poorly and to be honest, making sentences with individual letter stamps is just not my thing. I was in doubt between two fonts: Algerian or Old printing press. (links might not be the exact font or site I got them from, but that was long ago, I don’t remember where I got them). I chose the last one, as it seemed like the letters had some sort of algae to them, it fit under water. I taped some tissue paper to a sheet of thicker paper, printed it, tore it out (don’t cut, tearing blends better) and decoupaged it onto the card. Then I noticed it was a little bit too fuzzy, too much algae covering my letters! So I made them stand out more, especially the word sea, and I edited all letter “r”s, as they had a dot above them that made it almost look like a “t”.
Pfew. Are you still here? It’s a long post, I know. Onto the materials used!
Thank you for visiting!
DaqaDoodles 