I’ve been on a mermaid kick lately. I’m teaching a class next month at The Queen’s Ink that features the Laurel Burch Mermaid stamp set by Stampendous. But I’ve had my eye on this set of mermaids by Penny Black for awhile now and decided that it was time to pull them out and start coloring.

If you’ve been following my posts lately, you know that I’ve started mixing other media into my cards along with Copic coloring. I stamped the image on Spectrum Noir’s Ultra Smooth Cardstock and colored the image with the Copic markers noted below. I pulled out some gel pens and (patiently) embellished the mermaid and fish with layers of dots in white, gold, and silver to add texture and hints of glimmer and shine. After the gel ink dried, I taped down my card and the Burlap Layering Stencil to my work surface and applied layers of Distress Ink in Tattered Rose, Dried Marigold, and Scattered Straw to create the background.

In retrospect, shades of aqua and blue might have been more appropriate, but I wanted the stenciled background to complement the gold tones that I had added with the gel pen and stand out from the aqua design paper background. When I was finished stenciling, I scattered a few Dew Drops from Honey Bee Stamps across the card and called it a day!

Below are the supplies I’ve used for today’s project. Items marked with an asterisk (*) were provided by a store or the manufacturer for free or at a discount. All other items were personally purchased. Read more.

Supplies

Paper: Neenah Solar White 110#; Ultra Smooth Premium White Cardstock by Spectrum Noir; Sea-Maiden Two (*) by Authentique
Stamps: Mermaids by Penny Black
Inks: Memento by Tsukineko in Tuxedo Black; Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Tattered Rose, Dried Marigold, and Scattered Straw
Dies: Cross Stitched Rectangle Stackables by Lawn Fawn
Stencil: Burlap Layering Stencil by Stamper’s Anonymous – Tim Holtz
Embellishments: Uniball Gell Pens in White and Gold; Sakura Gelly Roll Pen in Silver; Dew Drops in Oceanside by Honey Bee Stamps
Copics: E000, E00, E21, E93, V20, Y21 (skin); E50, E42, E43, E44, Y21, V20 (hair); Y02, Y15, Y19, YR04, V20 (starfish); B21, B23, B18, V20, Y02, Y15, Y19, YR04 (tail & fin)