Paper Happinessity with Monica Formosa: Colour INKspirations Challenge #86 - Thinking of You featuring Seaside Notions Stamp Set

Hey there and welcome!

Colour INKspirations Challenge #86 is happening and today I'm sharing my entry. Our colours for this are Coastal Cabana, Shaded Spruce and Pacific Point and as these colours remind me of the sea, I took this as my inspiration. My card features the Seaside Notion stamp set which is relatively new amongst my stamp collection.

I've used a couple of colouring techniques for my card and utilized Shimmery White card stock to add a little extra shimmer to my colouring. Firstly, I created a background combining all three colours by sponging ink onto a strip of Shimmery White card stock, starting with the lightest colour, begin lightly and blending each colour carefully. You can either use the sponge daubers or sponges for this. When I do this technique, I like to start with a piece larger than I need then trim it down as the edges are inevitably, always darker.

To finish this piece, I stamped the splatter stamp vertically rather than horizontally in Coastal Cabana for added texture.

For the second technique, I used the Stampin' Blender Pens. Firstly I stamped the seahorse image in Shaded Spruce then taking the Blender Pen, I used it to 'pull' the colour over the image to add dimension. I love how it turned out! Once finished, I went ahead and fussy cut the image and set aside.

Now that the colouring was finished, I went and embossed a piece of Shimmery White card stock with the Old World 3D embossing folder and used raised side as I thought this looked a lot like water. I cut two seaweeds from the Smooth Sailing Dies in Vellum to give a subtle background interest. For something a little bit special, I decided to add in a Gold Hoop embellishment. I was a little bit naughty and stamped the sentiment in Soft Suede on a scrap Shimmery White card stock . Even though it wasn't one of the challenge colours but I thought it matched the gold hoop well. I did think about adding some bling or sequins, but decided not to because I personally like to keep things a little subdued for this genre of cards. I would definitely add them if I was making this card for a birthday.

To assemble my card, I started with a base of Coastal Cabana cast stock, glued on my embossed layer of Shimmery White card stock, using lots of tombow because of the extra texture. I arranged all my pieces, using glue dots to adhere the vellum seaweed die cuts and gold hoop, added a strip of Coastal Cabana to the sentiment and used dimensionals to stick this to my card. The seahorse image was stuck down with dimensionals on the upper body and added Tombow liquid glue where it touches the sentiment, keeping it all on one level.