Last month I had a great time with my 12 year old granddaughter who came to visit us from the UK for 3 weeks. She’s been to Canada many times but this was her first vacation without the rest of her family. We obviously indulged in the obligatory shopping and eating, and trying new things. But the highlight of the trip for us both was whale watching in the Bay of Fundy. Seeing the humpback whales close up was an incredible experience and definitely one we intend to do again.

Of course as soon as I saw the Whale Watching Stamp Set I knew I had to get it. There’s three different whale images in the set and some additional ‘scene builder’ type images too. However when I created my first project using this set I was a little disappointed that the orca wasn’t as black as I’d like. So today I decided to put that right.

BLACKEST WHALE

I began by cutting a 2″ x 5-1/2″ piece of Thick Basic White Card. Then using a Blending Brush I added a light layer of Balmy Blue ink over the surface.

So get the blackest black whale I decided to heat emboss him. But first I used my Heat Tool over the surface of the card strip to make sure the ink was completely dry. Then using VersaMark ink I stamped the largest whale on the left side of the card. I sprinkled the sticky ink with black powder from the Basics Embossing Powders pack and tapped off the excess. Next from the Happy Labels Stamp Set I chose “you are my happy place” and stamped that with VersaMark ink in the space that was left. I sprinkled that with black embossing powder and tapped off the excess powder again. Finally, after removing a few stray specks I melted the embossing powder with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).

Once the embossing had cooled I was ready to apply some finishing touches.

While I liked the blue background I decided I needed to define the sea a litte more. So I picked up my Blending Brush and added some Pretty Peacock ink along the bottom edge. I also used some scrap paper to help me add the ink up into the larger wave without getting too much over the whale.

All I needed to do now was add the tie to the end.

First I added a hole at the right-hand end using the slot option on the Very Best Trio Punch. Then I cut two 6″ pieces each of white and black twine from the Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack. After folding the twine in half I poked the loops through the slot. Then I threaded the cut ends through the loops and pulled gently to secure them in place. And with that my project was done.

Please let me know what you think in the comments below.

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