Berry Sweet of You

I recently purchased some of the Dylusions Ink Sprays and I can't tell you how much fun I've had using them.  The colors are so bright and the nozzle doesn't clog.  Now I want every color!  I used Pure Sunshine, Bubblegum Pink, and Lemon Zest to create this bright mat for my berries.  The image and sentiment are part of a new stamp set from Sparkle N Sprinkle called Sweet Strawberries.

This is one of those cards that a photo doesn't really do it justice.  I stamped the image onto watercolor paper and used my Peerless Transparent watercolors and a water brush to color the image and then die cut the image with a Lifestyle Crafts nesting die.  I also used the next size up to create my green mat.  For the bow, I found a piece of scrap cardstock slightly larger than my die (from Lil' Inker Designs) and covered it with double sided adhesive and applied Turquoise flock over the entire thing.  Burnish it well with your fingers and then die cut the bow out.  Before assembling the bow, I stamped my sentiment on the loops with Staz-On ink.  It feels so soft and velvety.  Definitely one of those things you want to touch.

Under the Sea

I used a variety of techniques to create this 6 x 6 card.  The background was made by using Distress inks and the sponged background technique.  Blues for the water and browns for the ocean floor.

Before I sponged my background, I stamped my fish image, made by Impression Obsession, onto watercolor paper and colored him in using Peerless Transparent Water Colors.  These are very vibrant and bright and I loved working with them.  Next, I used an embossing pen and clear embossing powder to emboss the entire image and then heat set it.  This way, you can wipe off the ink that gets onto your colored image. (Next time, I'll use a Versamark clear embossing pen instead of the Zig embossing pens I had.  They left a faint green tint on everything. They could have been old and that's why it did this because the packaging says they were supposed to be clear.)

The little crab in the bottom left corner is from Hambo Stamps that I colored with Copic markers and then cut out.  He is pretty small and you need to have patience to cut around each of his little legs. (My original plan was for him to have a buddy, but I didn't have quite enough patience for that.)  I pop dotted him for added height.  The starfish and shell were embellishments that I have had for a while.  I used Copic markers and a Spica Glitter pen to bring out their details.

This was layered onto a tan piece of Core'dinations cardstock that I sanded down some so it would look more like sand.  It's hard to tell that in the photo, but it looks cool in person.