If at First You Don't Succeed....

... Well. according to a Peanuts quote that used to sit on my desk at school, the answer was take a nap. And, while I'm a huge proponent of naps, I needed more than a good nap to make my seashell shaker card work.

A Seashell Shaker Card?!

A number of years ago, I came across a bag of the tiniest seashells from Pottery Barn on summer clearance. At the time, I had no idea what I would do with these shells. But, my love of all things beachy is too great to pass up these tiny treasures.

Now, years later, I found myself wanting to make a beach-inspired birthday card for a friend who loves trips to the ocean as much as I do. So, I remembered those little shells and wondered if they could be small enough to work in a shaker card. The pic at the right shows their size compared to some sequins.

Turns out that was the easy part. It actually took three tries to make a card that captured our mutual love of the ocean.

Card #1: Wah, Wah

I knew I wanted to use a beautiful sheet of blue paper from DCWV's Sweet Mat Stack collection. And, I knew I wanted to include a quote from a piece that hangs in the master bedroom. I thought I knew I wanted to use a Stamper's Best fishing net background stamp on kraft (SU crumb cake).

Wow -- what a disappointment! It was pretty much what I set out to create, but felt so flat. But, I really liked the seashell shaker component with the computer-generated sentiment printed directly on the DCWV paper.

So, I walked away for a day or two to let my creative juices replenish...

Card #2: Close, but no Cigar

For the second attempt, I decided to go with crisp white -- embossed with a swiss dot folder -- on the same shade of Distress Ink core blue paper as the border of the shaker component, with a white ribbon as the final embellishment.

This felt like it was getting closer, but wasn't there yet. So, I stepped away a second time, thinking about how much I loved the shaker component and wondering what I could do to make it feel like a more organic part of the card.

 

Card #3: The Charm!!!

My AHA moment was that I loved the DCWV paper.

As it turned out, I had one piece of it left. I felt it was pretty important to line up the pattern inside the shaker component with this other sheet of paper. Moreover, I wanted to make use of the glittery swirls embedded in the paper. The pressure was on to get the cut of this one sheet of paper just right.  :)



DCWV Sweet Mat Stack; Distress Ink core; SU crumb cake
computer-generated text
Pottery Barn seashells; Mark Richards gems
Really Reasonable Ribbon ribbon

Turns out the crumb cake made a great base, enhancing the color of the shells. And, placing the ribbon running underneath the shaker component makes for a much strong focal point. Success!!!

My only regret are one or two minor imperfections in the acetate -- from reworking the card so many times. But, given the end result, I'm willing to live with those.  :)

Linking this up to the current SOS I Can See Clearly Challenge to use acetate on your card/project.

Parting Thoughts

The Creepy Crawler Cards in Envy challenge ends on Sunday, and the Words 2 Scrap By Fight Like a Girl breast-cancer-awareness challenge runs until October 28. Hope you'll join us for one or both challenges.

Have a great weekend! Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!