Underwater Garden Easel Card

If anyone clever out there can tell me how to make pictures on here go where I want them to go instead of straight to the top of the post, I'd be most grateful to hear it! Truthfully, it does drive me nuts!

In fact if anyone does reveal this closely-guarded secret to me, allowing me to successfully upload a piccie to where I want it to be, I'll be more than happy to send them this card!

Or if they already have more cards than Hallmark (an occupational hazard I'd say...!LOL!) I'll send them a small pressie of their choice from a (very!) short list!
It's short because I've only just written this.....!

***Thank you so much Amanda! I now know how to move my piccies! Such a simple thing - so simple I didn't think of it! I feel such a twonk.....! LOL!*****

Dull light

My 'Underwater Garden' card is a first for me - it's an easel card, which I know for many of you is now old news but I've not got round to making one until now! So I don't know if it's right or not 'cos I just made it up as I went along!
The gorgeous colours have been chosen for me by those clever lasses at Copic Colour Challenge for which you'll see the colour card in my side-bar. I love all colours but this is definitely one of my favourite combos.

I've had a job and a half photographing this though! The sun has been in and out all day and it's either too bright and casting shadows or it's too dark making the photo dull and even my trusty PSP isn't helping, so I'll add a couple of each to give you an idea The truth is somewhere in the middle! LOL!

Bright sun!

Dull light

I've had even more help...! Yup! The team at Mojo Monday have had their 'inspiration' hats on again and donated this fab sketch, although I took the liberty of turning it into an easel card...hope that's okay Mojo ladies..!

Bright sun

Materials So for the card I made, you'll need the following stash. 2 x A4 Bazzil 'Bling' cardstock or similar 1 x A4 patterned paper (a) Brenda Pinnock 1 x A5 patterend paper (b)Brenda Pinnock Scrap of Rainbow paper
Oddment of strong card approx 21cm x 8cm Strip of purple oddment paper to use with MS scalloped punch 1 x scalloped round mat in one of the desired colours - I've clearly used prune
Blue inkpad for edging (I've used Whispers Denim) 0.5 metre of lilac ribbon 0.5 metre of patterned green ribbon
Stickles Leaf punchies Brad Approx 20 'Dewdrop' gems in green Approx 20 adhesive pearls Two small seashells
Small fishie (...for the mermaid's line...!)!
(I'll try to take another photo later on as I've just noticed the fishie is sideways on and ya can't tell he's a fishie!)

In addition to this stuff, obviously, there's your image of choice which, in my case, is a lickle mermaid, courtesy of the wonderful Mo Manning at Digital Pencil and, no surprise, she's coloured in Copics of the exact required colours (plus a bit of Stickles!).

Method

Well, like I said, not much in the way of method as such but what I did was

1) If your Bazzil card is only one sided, take the two Bazzil A4 cards and place them on your worktop one face down and one face up.

2) Join the edges with wide DS tape - just put the tape across both whilst they're butted together. (Because the card I have is not double-sided, I wanted to keep the pearl side showing and this is the best way. If yours is double-sided then it doesn't matter.)

3) Mark in from the outside edges 20cm and score crossways, so you end up with a long card folded into three, like a 'u' shape.

4) Take your piece of plain strong card and with more ds tape (and include the tape you've already put on the seam too) adhere the card over the seam to strengthen it. Make sure you make this the bit that faces inwards on the finished item! Or if it's a special card use more of the 'Bling' so it doesn't show so much.

5)Take patterned paper (a) and cut a 19.5cm square. I used deckle-edged scissors for the wobbly edge.

6) Lightly colour tinit the edges with the inkpad and a sponge. Adhere it in place on your 'face' page.

7) Use a pricking tool to make little holes around the edge or if you have a machine, sew it.

8) If you don't have a machine, take a blue pen and mark between two holes then miss a space to make it look like stitching. Do this all round the three top sides as the bttom will be covered.

9) Take patterned paper (b) and cut a strip approx 21cm x 7 cm and trim one side with scalloped scissors. Colour tint this too.

10) Punch the scrap of purple patterned paper with your border punch. I used a Martha Stewart scalloped punch Doily Daisy. Adhere this this under the scalloped edge of the patterned paper (b) so it peeks out over it.
Adhere this in place with temp glue or just a bit of glue runner so you can see to position your round mat.

11)Take your round mat and position it, tucking the bottom under the patterned paper (b) and letting it hang over the side border of the card until you're happy with it mark it at the edge so you know how much to trim. The bottom doesn't need to be trimmed unless your patterned paper is very thin.

12) Cut a rectangle of rainbow paper trying to target the colours best suited for your project. Slip this paper in position at the same time as you juggle your round mat, tucking the bottom edge under the purple scallop.

13) Colour tint the edges of your round mat then adhere it in place. Also think where you might want your leaf punchies so they can be positioned before any permanent gluing happens!

14) Using narrow ds tape of glue-runner, adhere a 24 cm length of the narrow ribbon onto the top of the wider patterned green ribbon and then adhere both accross the card just under the scalloped edge of the patterned paper (b).

15) Create a 6cm square mat for the starfish. I also colour-tinted and deckled this.
Write your words around the perimiter in a pen of one of the colours to suit
( I used green) and adhere in position with 3D foam squares.

16) If you haven't already made and coloured your image, it might be an idea to do that now.
My image is from Mo Manning's Digital Pencil (...like you neede to ask...) I used my lovely Copics for this in the colours required plus skin tones. I also used Stickles and Perfect Pearls to enhance the colours.
Once done, decoupage, shape with scissor handles to 'contour' the image a bit and adhere with silicone gel glue.

17) Now you can glue on all your little embellishments like the 'dew drop' gems, the pearls and the little fish - oh and the starfish! I used a plain sewing needle to give the mermaid a little fishing line with a fishie on it!

18) Whilst this is drying flat (the heavier embellishments may move or fall off if you stand it up) you can carefully make your bottom leaf.
Using patterned paper (a) cut a piece to suit. Deckle and colourtint this then adhere where you want it before piercing the border as before and embellishing with pen.

19) Make your message mat from contrasting scrap ( I used pp (b)) and adhere, with or without leaf punchies to taste and glue on seashell to be used to hold card open.

I think that's it...!
Hope you like!
Hugs
Ei
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