Seahorses

An Underwater Adventure

| ullycatdesigns

It’s Sneak Peek week for Karen Burniston’s February 2023 release!

Needing a card for a couple going on an oceanic ecological tour, I decided to create a luggage tag card with an underwater scene.

The card uses a variety of Karen Burniston dies including ones from her February 2023 release of beach themed dies.

For the card base I had some faux leather mermaid scales 8-inch wide ribbon that I die-cut two large tags from using the tag book pop-up die set. I next die-cut from some underwater background papers two more of the large tags. Having watched the assembly video for the tag book, I knew I needed to die-cut the hinge piece and attach it to the cardstock tags before I adhered them to the faux leather outer tags. (Because I wasn’t sure if the faux leather would adhere well with glue, I also used doubled-sided tape to attach the paper and fabric backed tag pieces.)

Wanting the jellyfish from the new sea charms set to look as if they were floating in the water, I cut the inside pivot mechanism from some medium weight clear plastic packaging. Because of its thickness the dies embossed the plastic but did not cut through the plastic. I used my surgical scissors to cut the mechanism out. Because of the see-thru quality of the plastic, I had to used double-sided tape to attach the inside panels together. To adhere the plastic to the paper lined inside of the card base, I used glue dots which look a little like air bubbles. (I adhered only one side of the mechanism until I was finished decorating the background with creatures and shells. Once satisfied that the background was complete, I adhered the remaining side of the mechanism.)

To decorate the card, I used the sea turtle from the sea animals set, the jellyfish, clam shell, crab and seahorse from the sea charms set, and the anchor, chain and “bon voyage” from the cruise charms set. The chain and jellyfish help hide the tabs the connect the pivot mechanism. (Because I used double-sided tape to adhere the decorations to the plastic, I had to push and prod the adhesives to hide behind the shapes, but some still sticks out. To made those bits of adhesive not interfere with the mechanism, I brushed anti-static powder over the areas to absorb the stickiness.)

On the front of the card, I used a spiral shell and jellyfish from the sea charms set along with the octopus from the ocean animals set and little sharks cut from the new beach borders die set. On the back of the card I cut a crosshatch rectangle panel using the first crosshatch rectangles set from leftover back ground paper and used the tiny sharks border again to edge it.

Because I hadn’t planned to add ribbon to the inside panel tags (the plastic was too thick to easily cut), used two ribbons -a narrow and a wide – on each of the card base’s two tags.

This card is to be hand delivered, so no envelope.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope it provides inspiration and joy. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Papercraft Society – Sam Calcott’s Underwater & Nautical Box – Background and Specialty Papers
  • Colored Cardstock Scraps
  • The Paper Studio – Clear Vellum For Printers
  • The Ribbon Boutique – Faux Leather 8-inches Wide Ribbon – Green/Blue
  • Clear Packaging – Medium Weight
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Inks – Abandon Coral

Pens & inks

Adhesives

Miscellaneous

  • Die Cutting Machine
  • Piercing Tool
  • Scissors
  • Tweezers
  • Sponge Dauber
  • Kat Scrappiness – Telescopic Embossing Powder Tool with Retractable Brush
  • 3/4-Inch Wide Pale Blue Organza Ribbon
  • 1/4-Inch Wide Dark Blue Organza Ribbon

Seaside Vacation

| ullycatdesigns

Seaside vacation - front

Need a break? Jump-into this vacation card and get away, hear the waves gentling coming ashore, the occasional seabird crying out overhead, smell the sea air and feel the grit of the sand beneath your feet.

This fun, A7 sized card came from my desire to make a nautical themed card from my stash of underwater, fishy, and nautical stamps, dies, papers and embossing folders. The papers and embossed/inked background came from one of early papercrafting magazines I purchased – Love Cardmaking issue 4 and its the “By the Shore” embossing folder, stamps and digi papers. I love these papers and have used them for to make a number of cards in years past. Two small stamp sets from Prima Marketing’s Seashore collection at some point made their way into my stash, but never used. Some new to me Stampin’ Up inkpads gave me the excuse to try stamping the small nautical stamps.

After pulling together all the various elements that I might use and having noticed a trend of shapes being layered askew on card fronts, I decided to try the trend. I played with the layout and began by gluing the blue background over the front and back of card. Next, I glued edges of inked embossing folder piece and trimmed off the overlaps that went off the edges. The top is wrapped over the fold and glued on the back.

Seaside vacation - front-cu

Using two different thicknesses of foam squares/dimenisionals, I adhered the stamped pieces to the front. The rectangular card needed somethings to hide the fact the rope border didn’t fully meet-up at the corners. In digging around in my elements caddy, I found some K & Company die-cut sea life images which were all too big for my purposes, but on the packaging were just the right size of images which I fussy cut and adhered to the rope corners. The addition of a puffy orange starfish and a foiled rising sun sticker and, voila, the front was finished.

I had one tiny multi-colored masked and stamped image with the word “Enjoy” which I glued inside the card.  The blue paper on the back of the card didn’t come completely down to the bottom edge so I pieced together a sandy beach to complete the card.

Seaside vacation -inside-envelope

The sailing ship was stamped in blue ink on the back of the envelope.

Sea of Joy

| ullycatdesigns

IMG_4122

Seahorses are so calming. Blues and greens with glittering air bubbles and starfish make you think of the slowly undulating water, with an occasional streak of sunlight peaking through.

IMG_4131

I based this card off of the colors in the printed paper from Love Cardmaking issue 4 and the Seahorses I had stamped using Hero Arts Color Layering Seahorse stamp set. Using a gate fold A7 base card and envelope from Park Lane allowed me to create the asymmetry of the opening by cutting the layered stack of print paper and seagreen textured paper using only the outer edge die of Tonic Studios for Scrapbook.com’s Paisley Edge Dot & Drop Die.

IMG_4124

Inside the card, I used the sentiment stamp from the Color Layering Seahorse stamp set on a white scrap of cardstock and tore the edges to suggest waves. By using three layers of red backed permanent tape I created the effect of the white card floating above the blue cardstock. The seashell is also stamped from the Hero Arts stamp set. The bubbles were from the Lawn Fawn Rub-A-Dub-Dub stamp set.  The envelope flap was all stamped using the Color Layering Seahorse stamp set.

Other Materials:

Textured cardstock by DCWV

Ink pads by Hampton Art

Ink pads by Craftsmart

Tombow Aqua Mono Liquid Glue

Tombow Mono Permanent Adhesive

Nuvo Crystal Drops – Metallic-Carmel Cream

Nuvo Glitter Drops – White Blizzard