The Secrets of the Sea

My son wants to become a marine biologist when he's grown up - so we have a lot of sea and deep sea creatures books, DVDs and models at home and as soon as he was able to hold a crayon he began to draw fish in all shapes (honestly not in all shapes - very thin and long shaped fish were his favourites for quite some time ;).

The Giant Squid, the Coelacanth, all sorts of whales and especially deep sea creatures are his all time favourites...so when I stumbled upon the postcard with the Giant Squid's image (which I used for the background on this tag), I immediately knew I had to have it.

As Artful Times Challenges and Simon Monday Challenges both have "Blue" or "Blues" as their challenge themes, today was the right time to use this image and create a blue, deep sea tag for my son.

I used my beloved Oxford Impressions "The Deep" stamp set and cut out and layered
the stamped images to create some kind of "stage" and depth for the scenery.  

      

And I really love that quote as it describes my son's feelings so exactly:

I applied some "air bubbles" using stencils, Distress inks in various shades of blue and the blending tool and also modelling paste and a palette knife.
















The stamped quote was cut in half and after distressing and blending the edges I adhered it to the tag using a stapler.



I am afraid it is hardly visible...but I also clear embossed some of the bubbles to create a kind of watery touch.

As it is not only grey in grey outside today but also really dark I wasn't able to do any better pictures than these.... I am afraid the artifical lighting changed the colours into much warmer tones as they actually look. Hmpf...well...I guess I will have to live with this for some more weeks.

I hope you like the tag anyway.
It was a bit of a new start for me too - after having been taken down by that nasty depression only some weeks ago (which made me experience the X-mas holidays in a bit of a blur somehow and) which also made me slip into a rather mojo-less mood.

But as I have learned that inspiration mostly returns when you keep doing creative stuff - even if it is "creating just simple things" or sorting through your stuff (or mounting rubber stamps), I decided to search for some challenges to play and to get me going... so here's my first project entered into a challenge this year:

Hugs and happy crafting,
Claudia x