Enchanted Wishes from the Deep

Today is Sketch #484 on the Sketch Saturday Challenge blog which is similar to a previous sketch, in that it has 3 circles. For the previous sketch I made the mistake of feeling like I needed to make sure the circles were incorporated in my design. This time, I allowed the stamp-images to represent the circles in the sketch, and I like the result ever so much better!

I purchased two new "hot" items for this design and want to give a short review of each as well.

1) Distress Oxide inks: 5 stars! I used these for the background to make the water. They were vibrant and easy to blend--as advertised! I think adding the water sprinkles really added to the effect.  I used Cracked China over the whole back ground, then Salty Ocean for a small strip on the left, and the majority of the right--thus creating a lighter area near the left to represent the strip in the sketch, and to look like a ray of sun filtering through the water.

2) Claritystamp Brushes: 3 stars. I had a hard time getting these to do more than a VERY subtle background. For this project I ended up using my foam blenders instead. I did use the Clarity Brushes for another project--a simple masked hill and sky scene, and they worked fairly well for that, as I DID what the sky to be subtle. But they still left brush marks more than I had expected. They just aren't the "magic blending tool" that I felt people were saying they were. Still good, but definitely not great--I think I'm going to try the Nuvo brushes as they look like they might be more useful to me with their more snub-ends. They currently seem to be sold out EVERYWHERE, but I'll let you know what I think once I can get my hands on them!


These adorable images are from Drawn with Character. The Baby Mermaid set comes with both a boy and a girl, which is so fun!

And the Baby Sea Creatures set comes with 6 super-cute little animals plus some bubbles.  I had a really hard time choosing which creatures to use for this!!






I printed all my images on Paper Studios Heavy Weight card stock. This paper is thicker than their standard card stock but not as thick as the Michael's HW--which doesn't like to process through my printer.



 I also like this weight for my card bases, as it again is thick, but not too much so. I chose to just print a bunch of the images randomly on a page and practice coloring, then fussy cut the ones that I liked the best. These were all colored with Copics and highlighted with some Wink of Stella. I glued the cut images to the background using Ranger Multi-Medium Matte.

The sentiment is from LLDS "Vintage Sentiments"; stamped with a white ink and heat embossed with a Pearl embossing powder.

To finish off the card, I added a few drops of Accent Essentials to look like bubbles. I did leave the inside of the card blank so I can add a sentiment later that is specific for the recipient.

Thanks for visiting and as always, don't forget to go over to Sketch Saturday and see what the other DT Girls came up with!!