Sweet Stampin' ~ Father's Day or Masculine Makes

Hey there sweet friends, I'm here to share my creation for Sweet Stampin' today and as is often the case, it's still a creation using a Whimsy Stamps image! This lovely image is from the Whimsy DoveArt Designs Collection illustrated by the very talented Jennifer Dove. The stamp is simply called 'Canoe'. It's such a lovely scene, so serene and peaceful. It was my eldest brother-in-laws 60th birthday recently, so I made this card to celebrate that special day. He's a very 'outdoorsy' guy, actually a champion water-skier back in the day, but I didn't have a water-skiing stamp in my collection, so opted for this lovely lake side scene, which was perfect as they have a summer house on the very lovely Lake Rotoma, and they spend a lot of time there.

I coloured this scene with my copic markers and ended up extending the edges of the scene beyond what I first coloured to turn it into an edge to edge design. I just didn't want to crop any of it down. Now I'm no Jennifer Dove with my colouring, but threw so many different shades of green and blue at this, I was pretty pleased with how if finished up. There's always still room for improvement in my colouring, but I was pretty happy with the finished scene and Jennifer's shading on the images makes it so easy to know where to deepen the shadows, these stamps really are fabulous.

I used a fun Whimsy Stamps border die to create a bit of interest along the edges and then very simply matted it onto a black textured matt and then finally onto a white card base. Initially, I only added the sentiment, 'make a wish', which is from the Simple Sentiment Strips Clear Stamp Set by Whimsy Stamps. But right before giving it to him, I decided a big birthday was worth commemorating with a number on the card, so I added a diecut '60' onto the card last minute. I'd not entended to leave the white of the card base showing either, I'd only wanted the black border, but when I went to mount it, the white was slightly larger than I'd cut the mat and I thought it looked rather nice, so left it that way.

I didn't have time to retake my main photo, so just left it with the black border showing. The things we get caught out with when rushing to catch the light for better pics! Hehe. I will share this creation with my Whimsy watermark also, because it's basically all Whimsy products! So that photo follows.

Thanks for popping in to visit today. I'll be back very soon with another crafty adventure. In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful crafty week! Hugs, Wends xoxo