FINALLY......

.....the light bulb went on!!! This card has been sitting on my desk for a WEEK. This is one of those cards that the ideas in my head were SOOOO much better than what was turning out on paper. I had gotten this Toad (ok...frog....but it's for my hubby and his nickname is Toad...so this is a toad) from Rubbernecker a while back and it was needing to see some ink finally. I had stamped the image a couple of times on Gina K's Luxury 120# paper (LOOOOVE that stuff!) and had finished coloring the image with my copic ciao's to discover I had colored the WRONG image (this particular one was stamped on a sheet that had a little mistake that was in a CRITICAL area)....fine. Cut out the image. Got this idea that I would float the toad on a background made using my alcohol inks over an acetate base. Except that the image just didn't look right over the background. Walked away for a day or so. Made my own little river with some hand drawn reeds to the side. Tried using a mixture of copics and sponging. Now, I don't mind mixing my mediums, but this was UGLY!! LOL!! Re-drew the river/reeds and this time just did some sponging. MUCH better! Layered the frog over the river and then cut out my first reeds from my mess up and layered over the drawn reeds (since they are hand drawn, they are not a perfect match which I think gives a more realistic dimension). Tried matting the image over blue. Didn't match the inked background. Over the next couple of days I tried adding different colored cs behind the inked acetate. Nope. Finally settled on just a small white mat. Great. Now I had this HUGE blank river at the bottom of my image. Ribbon~out. Got the idea to use some fishing line with this round embellishment. Just FYI: Fishing line does NOT wrap around a card like ribbon! Anyway~didn't like that. Tried the embellishment by itself. Just didn't feel the love for that. Got out my stickers from the past obsession of scrapbooking and tried "sticking" a sentiment. Nope. Considered handwriting a sentiment in the corner....Nope (for several reasons~didn't like the look of my handwriting being the most prominent one!)

Are you feeling my frustrations at this point?!! Over all, I have this card that I like the coloring, have finally gotten the overall look and it is just missing SOMETHING!! Then "DING!!" The light bulb went on!! WATERLILIES!! Pull some pics up from the good ol' internet and think to myself "I can draw those". Got a couple of leaves done and then looked at the flower and another light bulb. "Pretties kit!!" Uhhhh, WAY TO BIG (but I seriously considered cutting up some of the flowers and trying to trim the petals down to size)....ok, now my brain is STUCK on wanting these flowers to be dimensional but how? I'll just make my own petals and layer them!! ROTFL!! Can you picture me cutting out these ITTY~BITTY little petals and trying to curl them?! Finally~~a light bulb worth keeping went on. Got out my old SU Lily Pad wheel and used my black marker to roll out a couple of the flowers a few times. Colored and then cut out the layers. Added a yellow "middle....(what is that called?!!) to the larger one and layered the top over it with glue dots.

Here's a pic trying to show the layering a bit better.

A week later and OH YAH!! It's finally done. But more importantly~~ I like how it turned out!!

And even better~~~I'm DONE EARLY with DH's anniversary card!! BWHAHAAAAA

Supplies: Paper: Transparency sheet, Gina K's 120# Pure luxury, SU whisper white. Inks: SU's bashful blue, brilliant blue, Ranger Alcohol inks in Stream and Bottle. Stamps: Rubbernecker Frog, SU's Lily Pad wheel. Accessories: Copic Ciao markers,Inkssential opaque white pen, glue dots, sponge daubers.