Seize the Stencil Birthday

It's time for our second January Seize the Birthday challenge! Our new - but always optional - topping is STENCILS. As ever, we love to see any newly created birthday card, but stencils certainly offer lots of options for adding extra interest to your cardmaking. 

I decided to go with an underwater scene: 

I started with my background, using a fun bubble waves stencil and blending a number of distress inks through it. Next, I stamped, coloured and die cut a variety of critters (and a little vegetation) to make my scene. Since he was the biggest and I would be popping him up, I thought it worked that my one fish had the same colours as the background. For the sea bottom, I used two shades of distress ink and a stipple brush to create my sand. To get the sentiment I wanted to fit on the speech bubble dies I have, I needed to mix words from two different companies, but the fonts play nicely together. Finally, as a finishing touch, I added a little strip of patterned paper that complements the sandy bottom.  

Although I didn't use one of my ARTplorations stencils this time out, I'm going to link this to January's Stencil Challenge at STAMPlrations, as well as Inkspirational's current Fauna challenge.  

My friend Joyce continues as our surprise party guest, and you'll be amazed at all the different ways stencils have been used on our birthday cards! Take a look, be inspired, and play along. 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, MFT neutrals patterned paper, MFT Beach Buds stamps & dies, Paper Smooches Birthday Buddies & Paper Issues/Snarky Stamps Ahhhh Birthday stamps, Versafine onyx black, broken china, mermaid lagoon, blueprint sketch, shaded lilac, antique linen and gathered twigs distress inks, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Copic markers, Heffy Doodle bubble waves stencil, MFT scenic safari & Paper Smooches word bubbles dies, foam tape