The Open Sea

Bet you thought I'd got lost as it's been so quiet here!  It's been a manic few weeks with all manner of things happening, which I'll share over the next few blogposts.  I know... you'll cry if I don't share what's been going on in my square corner of Victoria-dom.  Here are a few tantalising hints: a birth; a job; a lot of gardening, very little of which was my own; an enormous amount of sunshine; a ceilidh; school assemblies; old friends; a promotion; cake, cake and more cake... and Socks!!

First, a card!  This was made using the fabulous new stamp set The Open Sea available in the Summer Mini.  We all struggle sometimes to come up with original masculine cards and this stamp set helps remedy that.  There are 5 stamps in the set: a ship's chart, a world map, a clipper type sailing ship, an anchor and a compass.  The chart is one of those very versatile background stamps, and I'm finding it ever so useful.  I do love using text as backgrounds, but it's nice to have something a bit different than just script.  The ship is stunning and so for my first blogged card using this set, I wanted to have it front row centre.

I followed the sketch over at Sketch n Stash but turned the vertical strip into a pennant and moved the smaller focal point ever so slightly.  I stamped the ship's chart first of all in Sahara Sand onto some Ivory card stock, and then cut out and adhered to a fancy Night of Navy die cut shape.  The rest of the card is fairly self-explanatory, I think, using designer paper for the background and vertical banner, wrapping baker's twine around three times and securing with a knot and the stamped anchor which I fussy cut out.

Here's a close-up of that magnificent ship:

Supplies
Stamps: The Open Sea
Ink: Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Night of Navy
Card: Naturals Ivory, Night of Navy
Paper: Soft Suede and Sahara Sand both from the Neutrals Designer Series Patterned Paper stack
Other: Island Indigo Baker's Twine, Picot Edge circle dies (non-SU)

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:

Sketch n Stash - this lovely stamp set has now been christened with ink!

Stampalot - medals and monarchs: this card makes me want to sing Rule Britannia!

The biggest news to tell you is that I am now an Auntie!  Baby Jacob was born at the start of the month, weighing 8lb 6oz, and we went to meet him this weekend.  I can confirm that he is as beautiful as his Auntie!  This photo was taken when he was just 16 hours old:

Thanks for visiting me after my long absence!