Lobster card

Hello all,

I wanted to take a little time to share the lobster-themed LTC I did recently for an Ocean Creatures swap.  Given that the creatures depicted were supposed to still be alive, I didn't want to go with the traditional red that people usually make lobsters, but I wasn't sure how to go about that (and I also wasn't sure exactly what color I should make them, so I turned to Google.

After marveling at this guy:

(Seriously, my favourite colour and everything!)

...I determined that most lobsters are dark greenish/brownish, but that there's a huge amount of variation between them. I know the lobsters I've seen in the tank at the grocery store often have orangey "spots", and I thought it would be pretty cool if I could depict that somehow on my card.

Once I finished carving my stamp, I began to experiment. I tried inking the stamp with a dark green, and then hitting it quick with an orange pad, but it didn't really work - the stamped image just looked green. 

So I decided to emboss. I am a huge fan of the Zing! Line of powders from American Crafts. They do cool opaque powders that show colors well on dark cardstock, they do powders that give a nifty metallic shimmer, and they do glitter powders that I don't entirely hate (which is about the best I can say about glitter embossing powder - seriously, it's a pain to work with). The darkest green I have from them is actually their green metallic, but I figured it might look cool, so I decided to go with that, and I also pulled out their Apricot opaque powder to give my orange accents.

Then I got out my Heat Tool and got to work. Stamped my lobster with clear embossing ink (my go-to is Ranger Perfect Medium), and put on my green metallic. Once I had the powder on, I turned over the card and flicked it once hard on the back, to shake off the excess, but also to remove a bit more and make room for my orange. Then I shook my orange powder over the top, flipped it over and tapped more gently. Heated it up, and voila! I have green lobsters with orange spots.

Then I used Ranger Distress Stain in Salty Ocean (of course!) to put him underwater:

And there's my lobster!  I still think the green is a little light for the effect I was going for, and I don't have any brown powder (well, I do, but it's Distress, and that's not at all the intended effect), but overall, I think he's pretty cute!  :-)

Hope you enjoy!

BAC