You Light Up My Life

Whew - I'm pretty sure that if I got any more excited for the upcoming week I might implode with happiness. I'm getting ready for a 5-day trip to visit my family. They all live about 6 hours away in Minnesota. Much to the chagrin of my mother, I moved to North Dakota for a job about two years ago and have been living in the frozen tundra ever since. AAAAaaand I'm going to get to meet my online bloggy friend and creative genius Betty Keefe, whose daughter is actually one of the only 600,000 people who inhabit North Dakota. Small world.

I have been so stuck on Christmas cards lately that my other stamps are now glaring at them with jealousy. Before there was a rubber mutiny on my hands, I decided to ink up a new set that I won from Inspired By Stamping. It's the Ahoy, Matey set and it has some AMAZING nautical images and is perfect for creating masculine cards.

Since it's Thanksgiving week, I decided to do a thank you card using the lighthouse from the set. 

Don't worry folks, my design aesthetic hasn't got completely out the window, those flowers won't be there for long. That's actually a piece of washi tape that I cut and used for a mask. The general premise behind this card was that I wanted to create beams of light going into the night sky. So I masked the "beams" and then sponged Weathered Wood and Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks onto the sky area. 

This is what it looked like after I removed the mask. I kept the Distress Inks intentionally blotchy to create a stormy and misty sky look. 

I also got a piece of cork that I wanted to play around with, and I thought it would make a perfect beach. I cut the cork into rolling hills and swiped the edges with Vintage Photo DI to give it dimension. 

I added in a blue piece of paper for the water, popped in my lighthouse, and then mounted tiny stars in the sky area to create a sparkly, shimmery night sky. Last but not least, I embossed the saying with white and stamped a big THANK YOU! on the inside. It's not my typical card aesthetic, and at first I wasn't sure if I liked it but the more I stared at it the more it grew on me. Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome? :)

I'd like to support the following great challenges:
Shopping our Stash - "Free is Good" (use something you got for free - My stamp set)
Simon Says Stamp - "Thanksgiving/Thank you"
TIME OUT - Embossing with the Optional twist of sparkle 
Inspired by Stamping - Customer Gallery

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