Hello there. I’m back with a second card, this time for our new challenge at As You See It where Heather has given us ‘beachcombing’ as the theme. Now, I had to think very hard about this as I had nothing that immediately sprang to mind from my stash (although I think there is a shell from the earlier days of the Craft Club) – until I remembered the Wee Marine Life stamps, which include a starfish! I had a further moment of inspiration (don’t worry, it soon wore off…!) in using the Branches, Twigs & Sprigs stamp for driftwood on my beach tones watercolour background – read on for the details…

I cut a square of watercolour card, then used a flat brush to first wet the surface, then paint it with ‘walnut stain’ and ‘salty ocean’ Distress Oxides – I spread the inks onto a mix mat, so I could water them down before brushing them to the card, which gave me lovely light tones. Once it had dried, I stamped several of the branches images in the ‘walnut stain – the bottom end of the stamps gave me a great rough look for my driftwood.

I then stamped the starfish three times onto a scrap bit of kraft card, again with the ‘walnut stain’ and fussy cut them, before adhering them to the topper. I added one of the Tall Feel Good sentiments with ‘ground espresso’ Archival, drew a few birds in the sky with a brown Perga Colour pen and ran a brown Sharpie around the edges. I pulled a 6×6 kraft card blank from my stash, embossed a frame onto it with a square embedder and a ball tool, then sat the topper within it.

There’s lots more inspiration from my AYSI design team-mates over on the challenge blog if you need help in getting started – we’d love to see you in our gallery! This card also ticked two boxes for me as I paired it with an ATC for this month’s Clarity Mini Makes swap on the theme of ‘environment’ – happy days!

I’m also sharing this card with a few other challenges, starting with the ‘watercolour’ theme at Double D. The large sentiments fit the bill at Word Power and as I can’t remember (or find!) the last time I used the Marine Life stamps they definitely qualify as Neglected Stuff!