Mermaid Kisses

Hello again my crafty friend, it's Amanda from Pear Blossom Press. I am so happy summer is finally here. I love the long, warm days and splashing around in the pool. There are bright colors everywhere and we get to sleep in while school is out. Kelly and I have been hanging out more in the craft room; she's been busy drawing while I've been coloring along with Kathy Racoosin's #thedailymarker30day coloring challenge. In the spirit of summer, I've been coloring everything in rainbow colors.



For today's cards, I did some masking and turned the little girl holding a shell in By the Shore into a mermaid. I stamped the top half of her, then stamped the bottom half of the mermaid in Mermaid Hair. It was super simple to do since they both have the same sized waists. I drew in a line to turn her dress into a bikini top and I gave her a little belly button. I considered using a mirror stamp for the tail, so they'd curl in opposite directions, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the lines as crisp (sometimes my mirror images end up a little fuzzy). I stamped a pair of mermaids like this. I also stamped out a bunch of fish and a pair of the whole images of the mermaid so I had two different girls (four mermaids in total). I colored them all with Arteza Real Brush pens. I knew I could cover up most of the shell in the first mermaid's hands with the hair of the other mermaid, so I chose to color the shell like it was her hair. It worked out perfectly! Once the images were all colored, I cut them out with my ScanNCut and outlined the cut edges with a black Sharpie. Then it was time to turn them into cards...

I think I've seen the Starbucks® logo so many times that the idea of combining mermaids with coffee/tea just seemed natural. I decided to put these little cuties into a large teacup, sort of like a hot tub. My ScanNCut has preset designs; one of which is a teacup and saucer set. I scaled it to 4" wide and cut out two sets. I pulled out the Perfectly Blended set for sentiments and got to work...

For the Ready to Par-Tea card, I ink blended Twisted Citron and Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide ink over a mermaid scale stencil onto one teacup and saucer. With the stencil still in place, I applied a thin coat of Vicki Boutin's Iridescent Glitter Paste. This paste is AWESOME! There are big chunks of iridescent glitter in there and it really shimmers. (You can now find it in The Rabbit Hole Designs' shop - woot, woot!) Once I removed the stencil and let the paste dry (on the paper, not the stencil; don't let it dry on the stencil), some of the chunky glitter pieces extended beyond the edges of the teacup. I just flaked those off for a cleaner look. I stamped and embossed the sentiment onto a small square, then chopped off the top corners to look like a tea bag label. I stapled on a piece of twine and tucked it into the top of the cup. I colored the tea with brown markers, then glued the cup parts together. I was going to put the girls into the cup, but I decided to put them in front of it for this card.

To pull the card together, I popped up a jade colored wonky stitched rectangle with a thin piece of fun foam onto a top folding A2 card base. I glued the cup on top of the rectangle, then popped the mermaids on top with foam tape. Since the sentiment is party themed, I decided to give them party hats. I cut out a pair of hats and quickly colored them with the same colors I used for their tails. I glued/foam taped the hats in place and added the fish to the scene. To keep the sentiment from just hanging limply, I secured it with foam tape. I used a combination of tiny rhinestones and sequins to add more sparkle to the card. To help the sequins look more like gems, I coated them with Diamond Glaze after they were glued in place. It's hard to see in the photos, but in person, the extra dimension is really cool.

For my second card, I went with a similar design layout, but I tried a different technique for the teacup. I spread a thin layer of white texture paste over a floral stencil. I removed the stencil and let the cup and saucer dry. Once they were dry, I dropped on Coral, Orange, and Fuchsia Aqua Pigments, along with a few drops of water, and tilted them from side to side so the colors would spread and mix. This is a technique I saw in a video from Pretty Little Button and I just had to try it. I love the way the paste grabbed the colors, but if you want it to resist more and be darker in the grooves, you can add the color while the paste is still wet. To add some sparkle to my teacup, I sprayed it with Glimmer Mist. I really like the way the mist settled into the grooves and bumped up the contrast.

Once the cup was completely dry, I assembled it the same way as the first one, except I tucked the mermaids inside this time. (To be honest, so much of the tails were covered up, I didn't need to alter the girl holding the shell at all.) I chose a sentiment that says Bes-Teas for the label and added a small fish to help fill some of the extra space. I decided on a neutral grey for the background color. It helped all of the other colors pop and, even though I die cut it with a fancy scalloped rectangle, it still has a modern feel. I popped the cup and mermaids in place with foam tape (I was generous with the foam tape since the paper was fairly warped). I added the fish to the scene and this time I used red flat backed gems to finish the card.

I love these cards so much that I'm thinking about making them in different colors for different seasons. Imagine them in reds and burnt oranges for pumpkin spice season (that is an official season now, right?!)... I also had a ton of fun playing with my stencils! I've got a whole list of other techniques to try and a bunch of new pastes too! I've made space on my desk for a glass baking dish that I'll fill with water and a squirt of dish soap to pop the dirty stencils into. #planningahead

What is your favorite stenciling trick or technique? Let me know in the comments below! If you'd like to see more cards made with these stamp sets, check out Watercolor Fun for Beachy Cards. You can find the sister article to this one on my blog too. Feel free to hop on over for even more inspiration and links to the specific products I used! I'll be back soon with another fun card for you...