Well that took longer than I expected.

Well I had hoped to have had this done and posted by long since but life got in the way yet again.

My new work area didn't work for me so had to hunt down a small desk to fit the only other available space. I found one at Argos eventually and it is just right for the space. Not sure how long it's going to last with me stamping and punching on it but it will do for now.

Then my dear son informed me that tonight we would be having an overnight guest.........his girlfriend. So I have been racing round trying to make the house look nice. They have just arrived and she didn't turn round and walk out so I must have done a good job.........lol!!!

So.........the card.

Well I have to say that I am so pleased with the background on this one. As usual the scan doesn't do it justice......it looks almost transluscent in real life and it all came about from a bad shopping mistake I made months ago when I bought some...what I thought was silver mirror card. It turned out to be an unpatterned holographic card which changed colour as it moved and I hated it. So there I was, stuck with this huge pile of card I knew I would never use............until the other night.

I was using up a pile of tissue paper I had saved from a delivery of clothes by applying it with a wet glue to a piece of card to create textured backgrounds which I could ink or paint. The card was driving me mad though as it was curling and warping with the moisture from the glue. In the end I grabbed a piece of the offending silver card and added some tissue with the glue. As it had a protective coat of the silver it didn't warp. I was thrilled that I would be able to use it up.

What I didn't realise was that as the glue dried and went clear a very soft sheen showed through from the card and made the tissue look sort of pearly. I wondered if it would lose that when I added colour to it so I rubbed over the surface with a Brilliance three colour inkpad in Peacock. The ink pad itself is pearlised but there was also a deeper glow to the finish which looked amazing.

I stamped over the background using a Hero Arts shell stamp from a set of four that I have and a cluster of shells from the Rubbadubbadoo Seaside set. I used Versamark and then added a teal chalk over the top.

I stamped the main image onto white card using Versamark and added light and dark teal chalks. I then stamped the image again onto thin white paper using black Stazon and very carefully cut out the shell shapes. I placed this over the stamped and coloured image as a mask and then applied Versamark ink. I removed the mask, added clear embossing powder and then heated. Then repeated that for a deeper embossed look. Once that is done it looks as though you have added dome stickers to the shell images.........doesn't show well on the scan though.

I mounted that onto silver mirror card and trimmed to a very small border.

The lettering is from the Base Camp Cricut cartridge. I cut it in shadow for a chunkier look, edged the letters in white gel pen and then added irridescent white glitter glue.

The thread is sewn through punched holes and the stars are punched from silver mirror card and glued on.

I'm going to don a wig and dark glasses and go and buy some patterned holographic card to see how that works for this background.....I'll keep you posted on that one.

I still have a few bits to find places for in my newly moved about room so I shall go and do that and then I quite fancy the DCM challenge this week. Last weeks was a bit difficult for me as hubby didn't want me to use a photo of him on something I was showing on the internet....silly fella!!!

Happy stamping then

Bye for now

Sheila-x-