Penny Black Friendship

Hi friends. It's the end of May 2021 and we, The Card Concept, are onto our Challenge #156 Anchors Aweigh!

For me, to work with a photo for inspiration, I look closely at the photo, the name of the challenge and try to use something I have in my stash. For this challenge, it was the anchor theme and the blue colors that inspired me to create this Clean and Layered card.

I started with this set of sailing dogs from Penny Black called Friendship:

Our daughter in Phoeniz, Arizona has 2 energetic dogs. The grey dog popping up in the middle, is her dog, Bennett and the tan colored dog on the right is Cooper. Funny, how we usually, at least I do, color these images to match our real life pets.

My other die set that I used to add a few embellishments to the card is Art Impressions' Sail Mini Die Set. I love to be able to add bits and bobs to a card to make it cohesive.

The image was stamped with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink onto Blick Art's Bristol Smooth Paper, sprinkled with Altenew Crisp Clear Embossing Powder and heat set. I colored the images with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. They work perfectly on Bristol Smooth Paper.

I ran the images through my Brother Scan 'n Cut (I made 2 cards) for a nice clean cut. I can fussy cut, but don't enjoy it and it is never as even as the Scan 'N Cut.

I used 3 main stencils for the 2 cards: Taylored Expressions Go With the Flow, i-crafter Cosmic Flair and MFT's Cloud Stencil:

If I had to give my top ten items a new crafter should have it would be a few good stencils that can be adaptable. These 3 are on my list for sure.

I used 3 Distress Inks: Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Mermaid Lagoon for the waves and clouds and 2 Distress Oxides for the sun & rays: Squeezed Lemonade and Wild Honey. I used Ranger's new foam blending domes and like them as much as Scrapbook.com's! We will see over time which hold up better. I put a piece of washi tape around the handle of the Ranger domes, so I can tell the difference.

At this point it was just a matter of playing to get the layout I liked. I did cut the top of the waves on one card with a retired MFT wave die I had in my stash just for fun. One of the anchors from the AI Sail Mini Dies set was cut from Lawn Fawn's Silver Metallic Card Stock and adhered with a silver brad. The other was cut from a scrap of Bristol Smooth, along with a sea gull from the same set, and colored with a bit of grey.

Finally, the sentiments were stamped directly onto the front with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink and one image popped up with an Action Wobbler and the other with foam tape.

Such fun and colorful cards! If you haven't played along with The Card Concept's Challenges, I encourage you to try. There is so much inspiration in their photos! Thanks for staying with me today!

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