It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of my sweet friend LeAnne to host this week and she has my favourite, a sketch challenge for us to play along with:
This is one of those sketches that has so many possibilities and when I sat down with my sketch book I came up with about six different cards straight off, there were just so many choices! In the end I decided to go with the soft and nautical By The Shore suite to create a rather fishy card today - take a look:
Here's the low-down on today's card:
Under The Sea - My regular readers will know that the James' are a family of keen swimmers and scuba divers, so this was never going to be a set I could pass up for long! Fishes, seaweed, bubbles, an anchor, shells and starfish, along with some great sentiments and rope/border stamps - a veritable underwater cornucopia. I used the main sentiment on my card today, inked up using my Stampin' Write marker to easily incorporate each of the three colours that feature most strongly in this suite and cut out with my circle framelits and used the seaweed in Mint Macaron to add a little background interest, stamping off once first to give a paler colour. I used an all-blue angel fish (if there is such a thing!) as my embellishment element as per the sketch, popping it up slightly higher than my sentiment circle. Here is today's colour combination should you wish to save it to use again too:
By The Shore - The By The Shore Designer Series paper has some wonderful patterns, including two sheets of ombre in coral and denim blue. The Calypso Coral ombre worked perfectly for my card base, and I also used a piece with a circular pattern for my vertical banner - it reminded me of bubbles, in an abstract way, so it co-ordinates with the other elements of my card.
Nautical Details - In addition to my sentiment and fish, I added a few other nautical details: I stamped a trio of starfish on my card base directly onto the ombre paper, added some pearls and finally a sailor's reef knot in vanilla baker's twine around my horizontal banners. This adds a lot of dimension to my card, making it a little un-post friendly, but I like the added texture and detail it gives so I will just save this card for someone closer to home.
Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:
You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any.
I love this fun set and just know I will get tons of use from it. The lovely Linda Callaghan also used this set this week - her card is beautiful and quite different to mine so be sure to check it out for additional nautical inspiration.
Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:
The Paper Players Design Team
Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:
1. Create a new paper project
2. Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission.
3. Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL.
4. Have FUN!
I look forward to seeing what you create with our sketch this week.
Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!
Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: