Heaven on Earth

Hi, everyone! Hope it's been a good week.

It's been a rather eclectic week around here. Activities have ranged from the annual smashing of the boobs to a movie/three-hour lunch visit with a friend. Catching up with Joan over a Panera salad was the best, and Movie Monster was a pretty interesting film.  :)

Today's Card: Heaven on Earth

Today's card was inspired by Mojo Monday Sketch #448, shown at the right, and the current Sounds of the Sea  Challenge over at Shopping Our Stash.

I initially tried making more of a masculine sea card that I could donate for the dad/masculine challenge at Send a Smile 4 Kids. But, the papers felt dark and dreary. So, I came across a long forgotten 12" by 12" sheet of beach-y tags and signs from Canvas Corp. (You know when you find something in a craft store that you just can't live without... but never use it when you get it home? Yep, this is one of those treasures!)

Well, the card below is what I came up with when I finally got around to using one of those tags.  :)

Canvas Corp embellishment; Distress Ink pine needles core paper; Stampin' Up! cardstock; stash acetate
Our Daily Bread Designs background stamp, heat embossed in Zing copper powder
Lawn Fawn Life is Good stamp set
Marvy and Paper Shaper circle punches
Recollections pearls; SU linen thread
adhesives: Scotch ATG; Recollections foam squares; Zots glue dots

The fishnet layer is a background stamp inked with Versamark and heat embossed on an up-cycled teaching transparency (aka sheet of acetate). When my first fishnet attempt was well... a failure, I thought about the ideas presented to wondered how I could use ideas presented in the Clear & Sheer Online Card Class to achieve the effect I wanted.

The blue paper in the circle embellishment is the reverse side of the Distress Ink core background paper, lightly sanded. The sandy footprint (and border) was achieved by embossing with the same copper powder used for the fishnet. However, the sanded core paper resulted in less defined flip flop images. This was a totally unplanned, but quite welcome result.   :)

The little pearls are Recollections white pearls that have also been embossed with the same copper powder. And, boy, they sure were a challenge to handle!

Parting Thoughts

pre-adjustment jpeg  :(

Huge thanks to fellow crafter Jenny who said such kind things about my cards, but said they were too dark for her to see details. (On second thought, maybe that's why she likes them.... LOL.) Jenny's e-mail nudged me to take some action. I am now using a photo shop program to adjust brightness and contrast. Thanks again, Jenny!

The May/June challenge is going on over at Words 2 Craft By. There's a My Favorite Things gift certificate up for grabs. We'd love for you to join us.

Have a great Friday! Hope to have a birthday card to share with you tomorrow. Until then, thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!