Life's a beach

Someday I would love to have a house on the beach. A lake, a river, the ocean. Minus the pesky floods, hurricanes and tidal waves, beach living seems pretty much perfect to me. But the chances of that ever happening are frightfully dismal, so I guess, at least for now, I will be content with making beach-themed cards.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!^®):
Stamps: Sketches
Card stock: Crumb Cake, Naturals Ivory
Ink: Jet Black StazOn, Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue, Blush Blossom, Going Gray
Accessories: Aqua Painter, Apothecary Accents Framelits dies, Bashful Blue taffeta ribbon, Antique Brass jumbo eyelets, Crop-O-Dile, sponge, Dimensionals

To color this image, I used an Aqua Painter brush dipped in the ink on the inside of the lids of the various ink pads. It's a quick and easy way to watercolor and generally looks good even if, like me, your painting skills aren't the greatest. After I colored the image, I cut it out using one of my new Framelits dies and then sponged the edges of the die-cut and the card base with Crumb Cake ink. I added jumbo eyelets, pulled a piece of ribbon through them and then tied the ribbon on the right side of the card. (The die-cut is also adhered to the card with Dimensionals so it doesn't move around.) If I close my eyes I can almost hear the seagulls crying and the waves crashing. Sigh.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Shore Thing
Card stock: River Rock, Marina Mist, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler
Ink: River Rock, Marina Mist, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler
Accessories: Hemp twine, Dimensionals, Tombow Mono Multi liquid glue, Mini Glue Dots

With its bold images and colors, this card has a more playful feel. I started with a River Rock card base and stamped the sand "speckles" and seashells. To create some dimension I added another layer of stamped River Rock card stock with a torn top edge. The water is a piece of Marina Mist card stock stamped with wavy lines and also torn along the top. To make the chair, I stamped the image twice: once in Soft Suede and once in Cherry Cobbler. I cut out the seat part of the image from the Cherry Cobbler piece, adhered it to the Soft Suede image and then cut out the entire chair. For the last couple of details I added a stamped sand pail and a piece of twine wrapped around the bottom of the card.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Stipple Shells
Paper: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla card stock; First Edition Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP)
Ink: Crumb Cake, Basic Black marker
Accessories: Color Spritzer tool, Clear Oval Accent die, hemp twine, water mister, 1/16" hole punch, Dimensionals, Mini Glue Dots

Instead of a beach scene, for this card I used a monochromatic color scheme with a little collage of seashells. I used the Oval Accent die to cut a piece of First Edition DSP, then I misted the DSP with water, crumpled it and opened it again. When it was dry, I spritzed the DSP and the card base with Basic Black and adhered the die-cut to the card. I wrapped a piece of hemp twine around the card and tied a knot on the right side. (The fold for this card is on the left side, so I first used a 1/16" hole punch to make a few holes on the crease.) Then I simply arranged the seashells I had stamped and cut out and adhered them to the card with Dimensionals and Mini Glue Dots.

Now I really wish I had a nice long beach vacation planned this summer ... Thanks for stopping by!