Hello friends!  Happy August!  Really hope you’ve had a nice weekend!

Today starts a brand new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} and the theme this time is “Nautical”!

I love the nautical theme and looking through my stash, I came across this older stamp set that someone had gifted to me and I thought I’d pull it out to play with:

This image is from Inkadinkadoo called “Down by the Seaside” that I’ve inked up in black ink over a piece of white cardstock.  I used some masking tape to mask off the areas around the lighthouse to make the “light beams” and then used my ink blending tool to go around the edges with blue inks with the darkest color closest to the edges.

I’ve die cut it out with a Taylored Expressions Frayed Edge Stacklets dies and then I popped it up with foam tape over a hand ripped red piece of cardstock that was sponged around the edges with white ink.  Before attaching the top layer over the red, I’ve added some twine around it and made a bow with a compass charm (by Tim Holtz) attached over top of the image panel.

These layers were attached to an A2 top folding Navy card base that I’ve stamped a compass image from a Stampin’ Up! stamp set called “Wherever You Go” with white ink.  I’ve also used a sentiment from this same stamp set and stamped it over the image panel in the top right corner with black ink.

Here’s a closer look at the image where you can see the sponging I’ve done on the background.  The rest of the image was colored in with Copic markers in certain areas.  I didn’t want to use too much color as I didn’t think it really needed it.

Hard to tell in the photo, but I’ve covered the water, sun and lighthouse “light beams” with a glitter brush pen.  You really notice it IRL when you pick it up and move it around and see the sparkle.

I hope that you’ve been inspired with my creation today!

Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!😉

Challenges:

1.  Arty Divas – #27 Anything Goes
2. Watercooler Wednesday – WWC282 Anything Goes
3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday– Anything Goes
4. Krafty Chicks– #518 Anything Goes
5. Creative Knockouts – Tic-Tac-Toe #361 (I used bottom row across: distressing, sentiment, twine)