The Open Sea

Happy Monday!

Phew ... got my post in just under the wire (told you I'd do it, Casey!!)  I haven't been particularly productive today in the old crafting front but oh well ... I still have until Wednesday to do about 10 major projects ... so no rush *lol*  What I REALLY need to focus on tomorrow is organizing my very first Team Meeting that I'm holding Wednesday night.  Woo Hoo!  I'm really excited about it - it's going to be a lot of fun!  ... that is if I have things to show, share, swap, make, give away and eat by then!!  The clock is tickin' so I better get on with it!

I spend about an hour and a half trying to come up with a card for our swap on Wednesday.  Luckily we only need to make 8 so it can be a little more elaborate than, say, for 100 at Convention!  I wanted to use The Open Sea set that I ordered only recently (I received some great swaps and convention and have seen so many great samples on Stampin' Connection that I broke down and bought it).  I was hoping for a quick, easy, stunning card ... like my Clockworks card from last week.  Alas it wasn't such a quick process!  I totally overthought everything and ended up fiddling WAY too long with it.  I wasn't sure I liked the end result until I stepped away for a few hours and then took another look.  Yep - I think it's a good swapper.  Lookie:

As usual the lighting is off ... you can't see the color too well ... it is Very Vanilla and Not Quite Navy card stock; Crumb Cake, Not Quite Navy and Early Espresso ink.  I stamped the various images on the vanilla in the crumb cake.  You can't see the depth in this picture so here is a blurry, shadowy side picture to show how I layered some pieces:

I stamped the globe image on both the base piece and a scrap piece of vanilla and punched it out with the 1 3/4" circle and popped it up on dimensionals.  I cute the ship out and popped it up.  I stamped the compass image on the base piece in Espresso and then again on a scrap piece and punched it out with the 3/4" circle punch and popped it up with dimensionals.  I stamped the Happy Birthday (from Perfect Punches) in Not Quite Navy and punched it out with the Extra Large Oval Punch and popped IT up with dimensionals.  I spend about 45 minutes with the anchor and Espresso Baker's Twine trying to get that just right.  Yes, I popped it up with dimensionals.  Just when I thought I was done I thought it lookd too "clean" so I attacked it with my sander, finger nail, sponges and finger daubers to distress it.  I'm done but it wasn't a quick or easy process!

Apparently I now have to go "verse" Alicia on the Wii before bed time ... then it's back to the craft room to work on those 10 other things.

Thanks for popping in - have a stampy week!


Tamara