otterly great

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ve probably figured out that I seriously love the adorable animal stamps from Lawn Fawn.  Each year to commemorate the company’s birthday, they put out a new little celebratory set.  As soon as I saw this year’s set, I knew I had to have it – not just for myself, but also for a dear friend of mine.  I preordered it from one of my favorite online stores, and waited patiently, and finally received the stamps a few weeks ago – one set for my friend, and one for me.

Then I had the dilemma of when the best time to give my friend her set would be.  Her birthday isn’t until September, and I didn’t think I could wait that long.  So I did a little calendar math and reasoned that since March and September are six months apart, I’d send it to her for her half-birthday.  I thought that a half-birthday gift would be a much more unexpected surprise than a birthday gift, and that just seemed like a really fun thing to do.

So I sent my friend’s set to her recently, tucked inside of the card I’m sharing here today.  I used a wash of distress ink on watercolor paper to create some variegated blue paper and then cut it with dies, using the darkest blues for the waves and the lightest blues for the sky.  I toyed with the idea of coloring the otter with distress inks too, but I haven’t done any detail painting like that for a while, so I decided to play it safe and color the otter with markers instead.  Once he was colored, I fussy cut him so I could place him floating among the waves.  The sentiment stamp actually reads “have an otterly great birthday”, but that didn’t seem exactly right for this particular purpose.  So I inked it selectively and fit the wording into the space available, using my trusty Stamp-a-ma-jig to line it up neatly.  I used OWH Stars & Stamps sketch #184 for the layout of the card.  Hopefully I’ve used enough distress ink for the card to count toward the current Lawnscaping challenge, too.

I hope my friend enjoys using this stamp set as much as I enjoyed making this card for her!  She’s an “otterrific” lady and I hope she realizes how much our circle of friends loves her.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Year Five (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Marina Mist, Kraft (Stampin’ Up); watercolor paper (Artist’s Loft); designer paper from Nature’s Whisper paper pack (Creative Memories)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Faded Jeans Distress Ink (Tim Holtz)
Other: markers (Copic); stitched circle Stackables die (Lawn Fawn); Landscape Trio die (Mama Elephant)