Guest Designer- Regina Cooper!

Hi, my name is Regina Cooper and I am very excited to be guest designing for Brutus Monroe this month.  I have been making cards since 2011. A friend mailed a handmade Halloween card to me and I thought it was so cute and she invited me to her house to show me how she did it.  I immediately left her house and bought everything she had and started watching videos. I love making backgrounds, learning new techniques, and getting messy with inks, pastes, powders, you name it. On a personal note, I am married to a very supportive husband who doesn’t complain that 80% of the house has craft supplies in it.  I have a half Pointer, half English Springer Spaniel named Barney, who is 12 years old. He’s my buddy and has always been by my side, or under my desk while crafting. I also like reading on my Kindle and planting flowers and herbs in pots. (not a garden) 😊

I accidently mixed some Mermaid Tail Embossing Powder with Pearlescent Embossing Paste and I think I created a masterpiece here!  It looks like a pearly blue/gray color and is perfect for a pearly water color to use with the mermaid stamps.

So now I have this beautiful pearly background... I wanted to make something cute with the Mermaid Lagoon Stamp Set but careful not to cover too much of the background. 

(I apologize if the stamps are blurry, I used all of them so they have some residual black ink on them)

I stamped all of the stamps in the set on bristol smooth paper and used Zig Real Brush Markers as my coloring medium. I decided to use the cute mermaid and some fish from the stamp set.  I added Clear Wink of Stella to the mermaid to add a subtle shine.

I didn't just want to adhere her directly to the background so I used a die that cut a circle but cut the inside out so that the background can be seen through it.  I popped her up on the die with some foam squares and added some of the beautiful Blue and Purple Flat Back Pearls around the die.  Aren't they gorgeous??  I do have to make mention that you need a strong glue for your cardstock to stay adhered to this paste on the background so I used Brutus Monroe Glue.  This is such a strong glue that I highly recommend you try it.  I have even used it to glue a cracked ceramic tile coaster back together and it worked like a charm.  I trust this glue for anything, crafty or around the house. 

I positioned the mermaid kind of sideways like she's swimming and to look like she's waving because I'm using the sentiment from the set, "splashing to say hello".  I stamped the sentiment on a pearl color vellum using the Brutus Monroe Plum Surface Ink.  It inks up fabulously on vellum but use your heat tool to dry the ink or it will smear.  Do it carefully from the back so you don't warp the vellum. 

To finish it off, I popped up a few fish that I also colored with Zig Markers on the card.  

I think the Mermaid Tail Embossing Powder is such a fun color and now I've shown you a different way to use it. 

I had a lot of fun using the Tangled Waves Stencil, Mermaid Tail Embossing Powder and Mermaid Lagoon Stamp Set.  This is just one project that I've created... stay tuned for more to come in the month of July. 

I hope I've inspired you to play with your supplies. Get that palette knife out and mix the Mermaid Tail Embossing Powder with White or Translucent Embossing Pastes to see what they look like. Try it on different color cardstock as well. Have FUN!

Please stop by my blog for more inspiration and to see a few more things I tried with this stencil and what it looks like on black cardstock. https://cardsbyregina.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Regina