Better at the Beach

This is a commission piece created for an anniversary card for a guy who loves the beach, old VW bugs, and Tennessee football.  I was given a few other options as well, but this is what I came up with.

inside

To start off, I inked up my background sky and sun with Distress Inks (tumbled glass, mustard seed) and tore strips of paper for my water and sand.  I added some "white caps" on the waves with my Uniball white pen.  A number of dies and stamps were used in the process.  You got to love it when a stamp and a die coordinate.  That's exactly what's going on with the large palm tree on the left.  It's from Taylored Expressions stamp set Hangin' Out at the Beach and the coordinating palm tree die.  The sentiment is one of the new Cute Cubes from Die-Versions and so is the Palm Tree Sweet Petite on the right.

The doodlebug (as we used to call them) is from another stamp set by Taylored Expressions called Feelin' Groovy.  I colored the image with Copic markers and then fussy cut it out.  Did you notice that I rolled down one of the windows so you can see the waves through it?  The "T" is the actual font of the University of Tennessee.  I downloaded the image and resized it to what I needed, creating one of those magnetized signs cheering for your favorite football team that you see around here.

I continued my sentiment on the inside with a Die-Versions font called Missy Micro and a Big Splash border from Memory Box.  I also spritzed the inside with Smooch Spritz for a subtle bit of sparkle (although it doesn't show up in the photo).