Stampin! with Jaydee

 

Books are a huge part of my life and I am an avid reader.  I have been all my life.  Whether it's poetry, novels, biographies or non-fiction.... I've pretty much covered everything - except Stephen King.  Once... and that was enough of that :-)  I can't remember the first time I read Hans Christian Andersen!  So, when I saw this challenge, I knew I had to play along.  Especially as I had a pretty newish set from Hero Arts that I had purchased to make cards for hospitalized kids.  I thought this set would be perfect.

 

I started by die-cutting an oval in a piece of Neenah Solar White #80 card stock - and repeating that with some Altenew chevron paper I had.  I blended the base of the card with some blue ink and then stamped a turtle from the same Hero Arts set.  Here's a photo of the turtle in the background.  You can see that I stamped it a muted color - pretty close to the background color.

 

I think you have probably guessed by now that this is a shaker card :-)

 

I stamped the mermaid and colored her with my Copic markers and used the matching dies to cut her out.  I couldn't help but add some shimmer and shine to her - especially to her tail.  I added some texture with my Copic markers, but added more texture with the gel pen - to imitate scales.  Here's a closeup look:

 

 

I stamped the sentiment on the inside of the shaker and mounted the front panel with a single layer of foam tape.  I wanted the shaker to be a little tighter than normal, so that some of the sequins would stay in the upper part of the card when it was standing up.    I am IN LOVE with the sequins.  They have these fabulous shell sequins in them, as well as the usual sequins.

 

Here's the full card:

 

 

I love how the sequins match the colors in the chevron paper - and don't you love those little seashells??!  I absolutely adore them :-)

 

On a personal note:

 

So, I called this blog post Waterbabies - and it wasn't just for the Mermaid.  I managed to catch some photos of a Thrasher taking a bath on our deck.  Now, we have seen Thrasher's a couple of times over the last 6 years - but they do not stick around.  I was so surprised to find that one has been around, and visiting our deck, for the past week.  What I hadn't seen him do though, is take a bath!   He was having a wonderful time and scattered water everywhere!  I managed to get a few shots of him taking a bath, not all of them were in focus, because he was moving so fast.  Note to self:  put camera setting on speed shots next time :-)

 

Getting ready to take the plunge:

Oh.... that is good:

 

Oh... yeah... baby!

 

 

Shake them tail feathers:

 

 

Ah.... that feels so much better!

 

That was one happy Thrasher!  So glad that we could provide a place for him to get clean - and cool!

 

I'll be back with another card later in the week.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

 

Hugs

Jaydee

 

Card recipe: