Smell of the Sea with Polkadoodles

Hello my friends and welcome to my first post for Polkadoodles! Look for me on the Digi Choosday Design Tuesday Challenge posts for I am now on this Design Team! Very exciting to be part of this amazing group of talented people beginning with Nikky and Kris Hall, founders of Polkadoodles Ltd.

We are given a Challenge Theme for creating a project and today's theme was the "Smell of the Sea". I created this 5" X 7" card with 3 digital stamps from the shop:

Winnie Starfish/Sandcastles - SeaShells

Winnie Starfish/Sandcastles - Quotes

Horace & Boo Paper Heaven 4

If you are new to stamping or on a budget, there couldn't be a better way to create than digital stamps. When you place your order and check out, you are immediately given a download of the image you purchased. No shipping costs, no late deliveries, no flawed stamps! You can resize up, down, flip, overlay, the sky's the limit with digi stamps!

How to begin? I was recently at a William Sonoma store and saw a display of beach themed items. They had a tablecloth of all shells and sea creatures in an indigo blue print with a linen background. It was paired with a red-bandana like print. This was my inspiration, jumping off point for my card. Look around when you are at stores. There is so much inspiration in design and color that can be used in your own way.

I worked up the background design and printed on copy paper to be sure I had the sizing the way I envisioned it. Once I was happy with the design, I printed it on Ranger Watercolor Paper, rough side up, using manual feed and the thick paper setting on my Brother Laser Printer. I also resized one of the shells so that I would have a focal image on the card. Both were on the same sheet of Ranger Paper - very economical.

To watercolor I adhered the printed design to an acrylic board with Yellow Artist Tape. Using Winsor & Newton Series 1A Antwerp Blue Artists' Water Colour I watercolored all the images using my favorite Silver Brushes, Black Velvet. I liked how the deep blue looked but wasn't happy with it on stark white. I decided a pretty cream color would offset the harshness and mixed a white and tan from Altenew's 24 Pan Artists Watercolor Set. Think of sand at the beach.

To finish the card, I cut it to size, fussy cut the large shell and printed the fun, quirky sentiment from the Winnie Starfish/Sandcastle Quote pack (sent-21) that says "Facebook Free zone". Perfect for a beach card! The pop of red is my ode to the red print I saw at William Sonoma. Yes, you can actually download and print paper - resize it, too! 

Thank you for joining me today for my first post and I hope that you'll take a look at the Polkadoodles Shop and give their high quality products a try! 

I am entering the following challenges:

NBUS - Challenge #27

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - AG

Angie's Digital Stamps  - AG #53

Crafty Catz - AG #555

Creative Knockouts - AG #405

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.