This is why I holiday at home

Alternative title - My Tropical Nightmare!

Well, if yesterday's card went perfectly today's has more than made up for it.  The Alphabet Challenge has come to 'I for Island Fun - anything tropical'.  Fun, she says! That definitely got lost in translation whilst making this card.  I have very little in the tropical line so I went shopping (shh, don't tell my other half) and bought a My Favourite Things stamp set from Seven Hills Crafts.  It had palm trees. It had flamingos.  It was just what I needed.  

So, I started by creating a lovely sunset using distress inks blended over a circle mask.  Well, 'lovely' may be stretching it.  It went straight in the bin.  I umm'd and arrr'd a bit and finally gave up and cut a circle from some backing paper.  I had a couple of goes at creating my island from some sandy paper with some more distress ink.  Then I came to stamping my images. I don't have a lot of coloured stamping inks so I dug out my mum's old watercolour markers and used them to stamp my palm tree and my flamingo.  They didn't work great but they didn't look totally rubbish either.  I cut everything out carefully and set about sticking my scene together and stamped the flamingo's legs where I wanted them.  I totally forgot to remove the flamingo and promptly ruined it with black ink.  Ok, that followed the sunset into the bin.  I stamped a new flamingo - which turned out to be different from the one I'd previously stamped and was facing the wrong way.  That also went in the bin.  Anyway, here is the result.  

I did fling a bit of sparkle pen at it to try and make it more appealing but you can't really see it on the picture.  Looking at it now I sort of like the effect the markers have on the stamp.  It adds a bit of texture.  Anyway, now it's your turn.  I'll be back to check the entries later.  I've got to go and empty the bin!

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x