Nautical Thank You

Hi everyone, this has been a good but busy day for me.  I was off making cards today with the girls, we always get together once a week and today was the day!  This is always a lovely day that we all look forward to.  I wanted to work on this card today and didn't have the original, so I posted a picture on SCS this morning so that I could have something to work from lol.  However, I didn't post any instructions and I hate doing that but today it was unavoidable. 

This is another thank you card that I designed for someone looking to purchase a number of cards to give to employees throughout the province of Nova Scotia so I wanted to make sure that this card said "Nova Scotia".  The paper in the background is the Nova Scotia tartan and it despicts the ocean which surrounds the province and the livelyhood that it provides to the people of Nova Scotia.  The ligthhouse is a Close To My Heart stamp called Perfect Day.  I'm really enjoying these stamps, they are clear and very easy to position and have beautiful detail. 

First I cut out a mask of the lighthouse stamp and placed it on white cardstock, I then brayed Hero Arts Shadow Ink - Pool blue for the water.  I lifted the mask and stamped the lighthouse using Stazon - Jet Black.  I sponged some yellow in the sky and some of the same Pool blue, keeping the colours light and soft.  A finger dabber workers really well for doing skies, I like the control it gives you.  I added a little bit of colour to the stamped image with watercolour pencils and an aqua pen.  I always use Ink Potion #9 in my pen instead of water.  It keeps the paper flat, no warping.  This is a fantastic product!  Kristy who owns Scrapbooking Cafe told me about it, she is wonderful!  Always introducing us to great new things.  Check her out at http://www.scrapbookingcafeonline.ca/

I cut out around the top of the lighthouse by hand and then placed the Spellbinders - Labels Twenty-Three with the cutting edge next to the image.  The cut out section is lifted over to the non cutting side of the Spellbinder and a small piece of tape on the SB holds everything in position while it's run through the Cuttlebug or whatever machine you use.  I love this technique, I think it gives the picture a really great dimension!  This cut out was adhered to the card with a tape runner.

The little frame for the thank you was stamped with SU - Four Frames, I thought the little shore bird was just right for the Nova Scotia theme.  I cut it out using the co-ordinating SU punch - Decorative Label.  The "Thank You" is SU - Thank You Kindly.  Both of these were stamped with Stazon - Jet Black.  I sponged a little Pool Blue for a background and added some brown to the little bird with the watercolour pencils.  I added pop ups to it and placed it on the card.

The knot is called Lors knot and it's so cool and really easy to do.  I saw it on one of Trina Kuriger's beautiful cards and she had a really great tutorial on how to tie it.  Check it out -
http://mnfroggie.blogspot.ca/2011/05/tutorial-for-sailors-knot.html.  I used some twine that I had laying around to make the knot and ran a line of hot glue diagonally across the card and positioned the knot over it and then I cut the twine flush with the edges of the card.  I don't usually use hot glue on cards but the twine was too heavy to tuck under the edge of the paper to hide the cut edges so I thought this would be a good alternative.  I had these little sand dollars left over from another project and they worked perfect on this card.  They are real sand dollars, but very small, only about an inch across.  I added this with hot glue too.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, hope you enjoy this card.  I love to hear comments that people leave, so please add your comments too :)