Sweet Stamp Shop: Sink or Swim

Hey there crafty peeps! Welcome to a new week! Thanks for joining me today. I have a little Sweet Stamp Shop card to share with you. 

I used a few sets for this one. First off the main sentiment panel and the life preserver cards are from the Ahoy card kit. Which, between you and me, is my favourite kit! I love kits because they make designing cards a breeze. But I always have to add some details to them or I don't feel satisfied with the card making experience. I want to get in there and get crafty, using a few different things. Not just cards and dimensionals. But, what card kits DO is give you a great jumping off point so you don't have to hit your head on the wall trying to come up with something! That saves me loads of time and headache.

After choosing my sentiment panel, I stamped this shark from the FISHY set. I colored him with Copic markers, but I wanted his teeth to be really white, so I used this Uniball white gel pen from CutCardStock.com to add a white dot to each of his teeth. I like how it helped them pop out a bit. Makes him more menacing, right?

Next, I went along with the design of the card panel and added some glossy accents to the already designed water bubbles on the card. This just adds a little bit of dimension to what might be a flat card. Not that flat is bad, its just I like some texture here and there.  I also matted the sentiment card on white card stock (also from CutCardStock.com) and popped the entire thing up with deminsionals.

Once I did that, I felt like my card was a little too blah... It needed a bit of something... I didn't know what. Until BAM! It hit me... I needed another colour. What you want to watch for with designing is making sure you have contrasting colours. Already my card was really matchy-matchy with the red, blue and grey. All of the same colours really flattens out your design.  I decided I wanted to add a hook to my fist and thought this anchor would do the trick. And Voila! In one stamp I added a new colour and a new detail. Plus this anchor gives extra opportunity for texture because you can tie some twine through it too. I knotted it and unraveled the ends a bit.

And one last detail... I added the wave stamp from Fishy across the bottom of the word "swim". I felt like it added something nice and simple. You don't really notice it that much until you look at it and then say, "hey! I see what you did there!" I kind of like it like that ;) Ok, and that's it! My card is complete... I thought this might be a funny card for someone who's just started a new job, or maybe even a graduate? Would that be totally freaky to them? Maybe it would make them nervous. That would be horrible! I was trying to think of a good sentiment for the inside and could only come up with "Good Luck." So I guess it would work in a lot of different occasions. But definitely not a wedding card though! HA!

Thanks for joining me today. Be sure to check back next week because the Sweet Stamp Shop October release is happening on the 13th! So be sure to stop over at their BLOG for all that goodness, as well as here for my projects too! It's A gonna be fun!

Thanks for taking a moment to come visit me. It always makes me smile ;)
Until next time!
xoxo
k