Last Rays of Sunshine

OK I know I've been a bad blogger...I have been crafting...just not managing to get it on the computer though!  The odd thing is now Em is off in Falmouth I should have a bit more time on my hands!  Having said that I am back to ferrying Sarah backwards and forwards to school, clubs etc.  Em phoned the other night and finally she has admitted that she realises how hard I do work looking after the 4 of us...she is struggling to look after just herself, she hasn't done any ironing yet, she's only got her room to keep clean and she doesn't have a large garden to tend!

Anyway I digress!  I'm here to share the card I made for my Great Aunt.  She was 100 yesterday!!  Not sure that she is totally happy about being that old, but she is incredible.  She still lives in her own home and cooks and cleans for herself.  Her major niggle is that she has lost some of her vision, from what I can make out I think that it is her central vision that is going...she says she cannot see peoples faces when she looks at them. 

With this in mind I decided to make her a very textured card so that she can feel it rather than see it.  The inspiration for my card came from memories of eating sand sandwiches on Hayling Island.  I remember when I was very small Auntie and my Grandmother used to rent a beach hut and we used to go there sometimes.  It was a lovely spot, but there was just sand everywhere....and sand gets into everything including the sandwiches!

Hence I made her card a beach scene using Crafty Individuals stamps. I stamped in Black Archival ink and then water coloured the images. The card is built up of layers.  The base is a square of watercolour paper, to which I added a wash of colbalt blue and then used tissue paper to take out some of the colour to make clouds.

The next layer was stamped with a row of beach huts (crafty individuals) and pebbles (art impressions).  the roofs of the beach huts were cut out and this layer was painted with watercolours.  I stamped the girl onto a small piece of watercolour paper, painted her and cut her out.  Having dyed a few lengths of seam binding with distress stains I stitched across the bottom of the beach to make waves positioning the girl so that she looks as though she is paddling.  To give the impression of foam on the breaking waves I ran stickles along the top edges and added silver accent beads.

The speech bubble was die cut and stamped with an art deco style Happy Birthday (Tanda Stamps) before being coated with glossy accents.  The 100 was a Tim Holtz die, again coated with glossy accents.  Not being able to get enough of glossy accents I also coated the beach huts and the girls parasol with the stuff! 

Having assembled the card I stamped the seagulls (crafty individuals) in the sky and distressed around the edges with weathered wood distress ink.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
"Chocolate, coffe and cards - Stitching"
"Clearly inspired - Ribbon or twine"
"Fussy and Fancy - Anything goes"
"Stampin for the weekend - anything goes"
"Delightful Challenges - Stitching"
"It's all about the vintage - make your own background"
"Paper-crafting journey - Ribbon or twine"
"Alota Rubber stamps - Birthday Celebrations"
"Crafty bloggers network - Anything goes"
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"Stamptacular Sunday - No Rules"
"The squirrel and the fox - must use ribbon"
"Penny's paper crafty - ribbon and or buttons"
"Whimsy Creation - Sparkly", my sparkly bit is the stickles on the waves
"Flourishes - Create a birthday card"
"Through the craft room door - Anything goes"