A Seaside Cup of Thanks!

By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea. Oh don’t I wish! And, you can thank me for putting that little ditty in your head for the rest of the day! But, back to business — I love the Cup of Thanks stamp set from Brutus Monroe. If you’ve read my other posts you’d see that I am having a bit of a thing for little things clipped to a line — as if they are flying in the air. So, I played on that idea a bit more with this card, thinking sea breezes and beach towels.

I started with a 4.25” by 5.5” piece of heavy white cardstock for the card back — which is the same size as the finished card. With Brutus Monroe Premium Chalk Ink in Sea, using the top of the ink pad, I “brushed” color very lightly on the margins of the card back giving it bit of a “waves at the seaside” feel. I chose one of the prints from my planner sticker designs on Etsy (ECV-0149 Dots & Asters!) to use in the design. Before printing it on cardstock, I scaled it up a bit and then cut a 2.5” x 5.5”strip from the print to frame the stamped pieces. 

On to the stamping — I love Brutus Monroe Detail Ink because once it dries I can use anything to color the stamped image — pens, watercolor, or pencils. This ink takes all the anxiety out of choosing the right ink for the project. I know, I’m baby stepping and still using colored pencils; but I do like the idea of just one ink that works for every project. I stamped several of the components in the stamp set on heavy cardstock, and then set out to color them. Keeping with a seaside color scheme, I used shades of blue, green, red and a touch of pink on the macaron! I used a Painters pen I picked up at Wal-Mart and put tiny silver dots here and there on every piece. Weird, how tiny dots make such a difference. Then my favorite part — fussy cutting. Good news is that there are free digital cuts for this stamp set on the Brutus Monroe site. I got my stamp set before the digi cuts were available online so fussy cutting was necessary. 

Time to arrange the pieces on the polka dot strip. Not rocket science, I just tossed them about like they were bobbing in the waves in the ocean, trying to give the overall look a bit of balance. With double-sided tape, I taped all but the sugar packs flat to the print. I then attached the decorated dotted piece to the card back using more double-sided tape. With a bit of black and white baker’s twine I made a few wraps around the card back and tied it off with a little square knot and bow. Then I used teensy tiny natural clothespins to attach the sugar packs to the twine. (Having a few dexterity issues with my hands…the tiny clothespins are challenging at best! There should be a Tiny Clothespin Use event in the next Olympics! If I started training today…I still wouldn’t win any kind of medal!)

A tiny bit of foam tape just in the middle of the sugar packs secures them to the print area on the card. I stamped the sentiment, fussy cut it and taped it in place. I realized after I taped it I did not ink the edges as I usually do…so next time I'll remember. I taped the card back to the actual card…making sure everything was going in the right direction. I have been known to tape things in the wrong way; but that is easily remedied by just cutting the card in half and then attaching the whole thing to a new card! And, hey, maybe you meant to create it on really heavy paper!

I paired this card with a set of planner stickers from my Etsy shop ECV-0133 Beach! Retro 60s as a fun little gift to thank a friend for helping me out a few weeks ago. I think it is a cute mix. And, since she is a displaced SoCal beach girl and planner girl like me, I thought she would have fun with both.

If you want to find me and see all the goodies:

Tanya Lochridge Jewelry

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Planner Stickers & Printables

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