Week 7 - Altered Playing Card Challenge

Always a week behind ... whats with that ? LOL But only missed it by a day this week - yay.

Here are my Altered Playing Cards for Claudine Criners challenge. I really enjoyed this weeks nautical theme.

The first seahorse one was actually made using the playing card I punched a circle out of in a recent challenge. Here is my inked background and embossed clear film :

 I used a Stampin' Up! set called By the Tide for the gorgeous coral and seahorse. You know sometimes you learn interesting things and techniques by accident .... well here is my daily learn. Because I do not have many colors of permanent ink, sometimes when I use/stamp with pigment/water based ink it takes too long to dry on the gesso'd background, so I emboss it. Look what happened - look at that yummy texture as the ink and gesso on top of the plastic playing card bubbles when heated. It adds so much depth to my underwater card - I loved it.

 I dont know why I added a sort of port hole, it just seemed right somehow to frame that circle. I took a pic of how to get the perfect frame using punches : Punch the smaller first and the second later. Seems so easy when you know how .... LOL

My seahorse was sponged and crackle glaze added. I also added bubbles with a Designs by Ryn bubble stamp - if you dont have these, your stash is severely lacking ;-). The bolts on the port hole are made using liquid pearls, and the wording 'Love Nature' is actually a free stamp from the Craft Stamper magazine. I switched the words around though, they stamps 'Nature love'.

A close up of the end result :

I see that Designs by Ryn now has a challenge blog, so I submitted my little seahorse card :) Fingers crossed, I really love her stamps x

For my second card I used images from a Technique Tuesday stamp set, All aboard. Love the tall ship and the Bon Voyage sentiment. The sentiment stamped a little lighter than I expected, so I lightly embossed it :) Its all trial and error ....

I also used a few background stamps, Off the Grid by Stampin' Up! and a Ranger Architectural image for the compass. The circular anchor image is from the Stampin' Up! set By the Tide. My finished card :