Recently, a friend of mine fell upon some bad times and I thought she could use a little pick-me-up. We used to love going to the shore together, so I thought a nice girly, beach-y card would be right up her alley. I used one of the new Die’sire Card Base dies (“Emma”) being released today to create a base that really reminded me of clamshell.
These dies are thicker than your usual thin “framelit-type” dies and are lacking a cutting edge on one side, so they allow you to die-cut through a pre-folded piece of thick cardstock to quickly and easily make decorative cardbases. I used a 5″ x 10″ piece of Coastal Pearl Shimmering Cardstock folded in half to cut my base with the second largest die in the set.
Then, I took the next smallest die (pictured above) and traced around the outside onto some watercolor cardstock so that I would have a better idea of how to stamp my scene (“Seascapes” stamp set). I did it this way because I prefer to color my image before cutting it down.
Most of Sheena Douglass’ designs are super detailed…so they are super easy to watercolor because the shading and texture is provided for you. I usually add color directly to the paper with my Spectrum Aqua markers where the shadows in the image are and just pull it out with a waterbrush to fill in the rest of the space. For large areas like the sky, I color some of the marker down on my craft mat, mix in some water, and apply a paler wash over the entire space.
Inside my “clamshell” card, I added a panel of Ultrasmooth Cardstock stamped with some words of encouragement and die-cut with the third-largest die in the “Emma” set. I love the beachy and feminine feel of this card and think my friend is going to love it.
Do you create shaped cards or just like to stick with the tried and true rectangles and squares?
Spectrum Aqua markers used: Aquamarine, Marine, Moss, Bud Green, Charcoal, Slate, Scarlet, Chestnut, Desert, Terracotta