Good morning!! I’m thrilled to be a stop on the hop for the 2nd Anniversary Blog Hop for Studio Katia! Studio Katia is celebrating their Anniversary with a new release!! The May 2018 release includes 6 new clear stamp sets and 4 sets of coordinating dies, 4 new stand-alone creative dies, 2 new stencils and new embellishments!! Today I’m using the adorable Under the Sea set for my card!
So storytime…while in college I took a field ecology course over the summer of my sophomore year. I was a music major but always enjoyed science so I took a few extra science courses just for fun. And this class was a 12 day, 100 mile ocean kayaking trip in the Baja Peninsula. I had literally never been in a kayak prior to taking the class (as was the case for every student in the class) so it was definitely a crash course in learning how to kayak. We camped on deserted virgin beaches every night and basically saw no one the entire time we were kayaking. And it was amazing! It was stunningly beautiful and we saw tons and tons of wildlife everyday…rays, dolphins, scorpions, sea birds, tarantulas, and countless fish! The only bad part of the trip…on the 5th day of our trip I was pushing my kayak through the waves and I stepped on a stingray. And made him REALLY mad. I never knew how much control stingrays have over their stingers and that they can drive those suckers straight down through the top of your foot. And the pain was like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life. And the cure…is to put your foot in a bucket with ocean water and pour boiling water into the bucket to break down the poison sheath and stop the pain. Yeah…that was exciting. Needless to say now I look at the aquarium tanks with the “pet the stingray” displays very differently than most people. 😉
Anyway, as soon as I saw the stingrays in the Under the Sea set I wanted to use them on a card! I started by blending peacock feathers and mermaid lagoon distress oxide ink onto a piece of white cardstock. Then I splattered the panel with water and blotted off the excess. Next I laid the Brush Stroke Waves stencil over the panel and applied a thin layer of blue topaz glimmer paste! I let that dry and then trimmed the panel down to 4″ by 5.25″.
Next I stamped the stingrays onto watercolor paper with versamark and heat-embossed them with silver embossing powder. I watercolored them with my mijello mission gold watercolors and let them dry. Then I masked off the bottoms and added splatters of dark grey paint to give them the look of an eagle ray (like the teacher ray from Finding Nemo!). I used the coordinating dies to die-cut them and then added a layer of spectrum noir clear sparkle to their tops.
I stamped the sentiment on white cardstock and heat-embossed it with silver embossing powder before trimming it down to an angled label. I adhered the stenciled panel to a card base, and added the rays and sentiment with foam mounting tape. Finally I finished the card with a few iridescent bubbles! Maybe it was a form of catharsis…but I really had fun with this card! 🙂
To celebrate their anniversary Studio Katia is giving away TWO $100 CAD Gift Certificates every day of the Blog Hop! That’s FOUR chances to win big!!! The winners will be chosen randomly from comments left on ALL blogs of the Blog Hop.
To enter:
You should have arrived from Erum and Ilina is your next stop. If you get lost you can find the full hop list below or visit the Studio Katia Blog! This is the second day of a two day blog hop so make sure to hop along on day one for more chances to win!
- Studio Katia (Rowena)
- SimonSaysStamp
- Amy Kolling
- Crystal Thompson
- Dana Gong
- Erum Tasneem
- Jessica Frost Ballas –> You are here!
- Ilina Crouse
- Heather Hoffman
- Tracy Freeman
- Olga Moss
- Simon Hurley
- Carol Mayne
- Laurie Case
- Kristina Pokazanieva
- Kari VanNoy
- Natalia Zubkova
- Amanda Bodine
- Liliya Rytsar
Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day! Happy hopping!! 🙂
Interested in the products I used? To make them easy for you to find, I have listed them below. (Affiliate disclosure can be found here). Your purchases through my links help keep my blog running with no additional cost to you and I thank you so much for the support!!
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if a card could be perfect, this would be it! SO beautifully done Jessica! Love it!!!
Wow Jess your story about your sting on your foot made me cringe! That must have really hurt! I love your card!!!
That’s a wonderful card!! 🙂
The stencil layering over the distress background , love! Great card!!!!
They look great on a card and in person as long as I don’t step on them (I will keep that in mind). 🙂
I don’t know if I could even look at a stingray after your experience. You did an awesome job of blending the distress oxides and adding the waves and glitter. Love the effect. Great job.
Hi Jessica, your card is stunning. As always you are always creative with your cards. Thank you for sharing and the inspiration.
Cute card!
Love your card. The coloring & sparkle are great! So sorry about getting stung by a sting ray. My daughter had that experience also & ended up with an infection. As you said – very painful. I love this set tho & won’t let it stop me from making cards!
Marcia m
How come my comments keep disappearing??? So sad! Love your Card – Love the rays
Hi Kathleen, I’ve got a pretty strict filter in place for catching spam comments and it tends to make me re-approve comments even if you’ve commented on my blog in the past. I see several comments from you…I just hadn’t gotten to approving them yet! 🙂
Love this card. It is so cute!
Wow, what a story! It sounds like a wonderful trip except for the injury to your foot (and the tarantulas)! Your card is amazing! I love how you colored the stingrays and that beautiful glittery background.
What a fun trip and I love your card! Love the shimmer to it too! Beautiful job.
That’s a fantastic card !! You nailed coloring the stingrays !! And that was a cool story to read !
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What a pretty card with the great stripes of sparkle. Thanks for sharing your story.
Boiling water, better than the stingray pain! WOW! You are one tough cookie, Jessica. That must have really hurt. Really enjoyed your story. Your card takes on a whole new meaning! I just love how the stingray looks almost 3D in your cards. Beautiful! The sparkle is incredible. I love your blog, the stories and the art work.
Stunning card Jessica! So beautifully colored, but then you have up close experience with stingrays. It does NOT sound like fun to get stung, but what an adventure.
Last summer, after we had just moved back from Okinawa, my son stepped on a stingrays while we were at a CA beach. He toughed it out but we had to remedy it with a tub of the hottest water he could stand. Next day we got him back to the beach with snorkel hard bottom booties.
Your beautiful stingrays are far more appealing and you did a wonderful job coloring them in! Your background rocks too. I think this is the best utilization of this stamp set that I have seen in the two days of posts. Hope you have ventured back to the beach and remember to shuffle your feet as you enter the water! It scares the sea critter away.
such a fun card!
Jess, your card never cease to amaze me. They’re always SO pretty 🙂 All the heart eyes are coming your way from VA Beach <3
I’m pretty sure if I ever received a card like this I would never dispose of it. Gorgeous!
Wow! What a crazy story and what a gorgeous card!!! Love the beautiful background you created with the oxide inks and glimmer paste!!!
After seeing this card I am really wanting that stencil. It looks great on all the cards but I love that you used glitter paste instead of just inking. The rays are adorable!