She sells Seahorses Down by the Sale Page!

Once again, it's my turn to showcase a project made from Technique Junkies July New Releases!!

This shaker tag is the first of 5 that I ended up making-and could have made SO MANY MORE using my Gelli plate and the New Release stamps 

BUBBLE FLOW

and 

LET THE SEA STIR YOUR SOUL

Making this tag was easy. I hate saying that. Naturally, I want you to marvel at it and think "Wow! That Carmen sure is a goddess when it comes to creating spectacular projects! She's so great I bet the Pope will beatify her hands at some point!"

Okay. So maybe only I think that. But pretending you are saying it as well gets me through these post house arrest days. Besides, as my Therapist Darlene says, "whatever works, as long as it isn't manslaughter or maiming".

Therapist Darlene and her ilk are such downers. They're always trying to make us work harder than we should have to with their whole "communication" and "compassion" racket. 

These post house arrest days should be good ones for all of us, right? So why am I dragging and feeling as if nothing has changed?

Oh...right...BECAUSE IT HASN'T.

You heard right, my friends. 

All three y-chromosomes are still in their rooms. They haven't emerged except to eat and complain that there's nothing to eat. Granted, this has been the case for the past decade but I could actually get them to leave occasionally. 

All I had to do in the past is have their room fumigated. Turns out taking away a fresh air supply would make them leave in a hurry and, like little cockroaches, they'd scuttle out and hide in some dark corner with their Nintendo's. But, as soon as the dust (fumes) settled, they were back in their rooms. Now, those little suckers are immune to the pesticides.

Not that I won't keep trying, mind you.

The Marital Unit is working from home and now it's permanent. He sits in the loft at the top of our stairs, watching Fox News, and shouting out random headlines. It's like having a sniper in the house. Imagine pouring a cup of coffee in a fairly quiet house then someone yelling "Trump shutting down air travel!"

Naturally, I tend to jump when this happens, spilling and/or dropping whatever is in my hands at the time. I'm telling you, people...there are NOT enough pharmaceuticals to get me through all this.

NOW you see. House arrest has become a life sentence. And I'm stuck in a 4br cell with a Marital Unit who has developed a television news-based Tourette's and children who used my entire 3 month toilet paper stash in two weeks. 

And when it comes to 3 boys eating and never leaving the house, I can tell you how I've become an expert in toilet plunging!!

Oh, sorry...totally off topic...again. Back to the tag.

I used my Gelli plate and covered it with metallic acrylic paint. Then, I stamped the Bubble stamp and lifted the print. The shine is AMAZING! I love those paints (I got mine at Michaels). Next, I punched a hole for a shaker cup. The only cups I had were Stampin Up! and they made a proprietary punch to fit those cups. So, I used my circle punch, used a small amount of Viva Ferro Amber Gold paste that I'd allowed to dry out as sand and filled it with small shells and starfish. 

After adhereing the cup, I had the flattened part on the bottom so I used pearl trim to surround the scene and crystals to cover the part showing. Then, I used the Ferro again to spread on the bottom and glued my shells to it. 

(NOTE: I can't find Viva Ferro for sale in the US anymore. It's a shame. But you can use a cheap tube of texture paste from Michaels or Hobby Lobby and mix it with paint or alcohol ink for the same effect)

When I stamped the sentiment, I realized that I should've stamped and embossed in a darker color as it got lost in the shuffle. 

Let me say that BOTH are what I call "core stamps". They have tons of usage possibilities and both are less than 15 bucks. ACTUALLY, they're less than 10!! Roughly 14 bucks MINUS the 15% off (that you get IF YOU PURCHASE BY THE 8TH) and then MINUS the EXTRA 10% OFF YOU GET FROM USING MY CODE 

TJ10CARMEN

Then, YOU'RE PRACTICALLY GETTING THE SENTIMENT FOR FREE (if you purchase by the 8th and use my code!!!!)

Whew...tired myself out with all those caps. But when it comes to "discounts", I get a little excited. 

My second project is using the FLORAL SEAHORSE 

(It's $7.95 USD but buy BY the 8th and it becomes $6.76 and if you use MY DISCOUNT CODE TJ10CARMEN, it becomes $6.08! What a savings!!! But after the 8th, you'll only be able to use my code for 10%. Which isn't bad but I'd order by the 8th if I were you!)

Michaels had these small 4 x 4 white canvases that came in a pack of 9. I painted this with black gesso and stamped the seahorse in VersaMark. I used white embossing powder then mixed my metallic acrylic paints with molding paste, trying to add a little dimension to the piece.

This was NOT successful. 

But, once I started, I was gonna finish! 

I added the sand dollar for 2 reasons: the first is that I thought it complimented the piece and elevated it to "mixed media" since I used two different elements other than paint. 

The second reason is that I blew it painting the flower. Seriously. It was horrific. And what do we do when we totally mess something up and we're almost at the end of a time-consuming project? 

WE HIDE IT! 

Next time, I'll stick to just paint without the mixer. 

I hope you enjoyed your visit to TJ's this morning. Take my discount and run with it! You've only got until the 8th to take advantage of the 15% off New Releases (no code needed-applied automatically, although you DO have to type in my code in the "Coupon Code" box) so what are you still doing here reading this mediocre post of mine? 

GO GO GO!