Just Keep Swimming...

Greetings Oddies!!  Sooo glad to be here with you today bringing you another fabulous challenge over at the Odd Girl Blog!!  There's a super fun sketch for you to play along with us and don't forget...you have an entire month to play along!!  It's just fabulous all around!

Here's the sketch:

I've used one of my very favorite SOG sets - Under The Sea Mae, this time highlighting the CRAZY CUTE sea horse.  I used one of my most used and most popular "go to" techniques - painting with Distress Inks.  I have to be honest, when I'm in a crunch for time, feeling low on mojo, or am having one or another crafting maladies I turn to this technique to help push me through and finish a creation that I am happy with and can be proud of! 

I inked the seahorse onto good quality watercolor paper and heat set it with black embossing powder.  A tip for using black embossing powder.  If you don't have a fancy powder tool, which I do not, (love those things!) grab a dryer sheet and lightly swift it over your paper.  Don't scrub too hard because then your ink won't grab well to the paper but if you do it lightly it does help eliminate any static cling and you won't be left with so many stray bits of embossing powder.  But there are always a few, so I take a very fine, soft paintbrush and gently sweep away any strays that are hanging around.  I then zap it dry!

I love how quickly the image comes together when painting with the pearlized water yet how sparkly, shimmery and brilliant the color comes out.  I cut it out using my circle Spellbinders matting it with kraft cardstock.

For my background, I started with some very basic designer paper from a HUGE stack pack that I bought years ago.  I recently 'unearthed' it tucked away in a bin.  It seriously was 300 or so sheets and I *think* it was either from K&CO or DCWV.  One of the two.  The paper is really thin and to call the quality fair is being kind.  But I LOVED most of the patterns and colors so I grabbed it when it was on sale eons ago.  When I found it a few weeks ago, I painstakingly went through it tearing out all of the sheets I liked and trimmed them down to a manageable 6x6 size.  I RARELY buy 12x12 anymore unless the patterns are smaller scaled which work better for cards and mini-albums so whatever was leftover went right into my kids art drawers!

 

I grabbed a patterned blue piece but it didn't "quite" go with my scheme so I enhanced it a bit by stamping the background with a Studio Calico background stamp and embossing it with white embossing powder.  I then grabbed the same Distress Inks that I used for the sea horse - Peacock Feathers, Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint and sponged the background until it was exactly how I wanted it.  I love that you can still see the original paper shining through but it looks just richer with the added touches.

I used a variety of embellishments including pearlized and glittery brads, paper doily, baker's twine, fabric flower trim, a fun decorative pin, sticky back rhinestones and my MFT Fishtail Flag STAX Die-namics.

I layered my main panel and ran a straight stitch for extra texture.

I really do love when all of my elements come start to come together.

I do so hope you come join us over at the Odd Girl Challenge Blog!!  Can't wait to see what you create!!

Crafty Hugs!
Meredith