I'd Like To Be Under Sea ...

Ok, well I tell a fib! Only if it was shallow! I wouldn't mind being on a tropical beach though, at a lovely resort. Koh Samui maybe...

I've seeing lots of gorgeous tags with a Seahorse on them, around blog land and I discovered they're inspired by Tim Holtz's Tags of 2014 - July. So I decided to have a play. This is what I created.

I don't have the seahorse die and although I could have used a Silhouette cut file, I decided to use something that's been in my little box of treasures for a long time. It's the skeleton of a real Seahorse, found on the beach.  I sprayed it with gold Heidi Swapp Color Shine.

Back to the tag. I embossed it with a wood grain folder and then painted it with a thick gesso. Next I coloured it with distress paints. I like the way the gesso makes it streaky. 

I have something hidden in the background - can you see it? I used a stencil and distress ink to have a couple more Seahorses subtly floating in the background. 

I used Silhouette to die cut some seaweed and a few leaf die cuts.

To finish it off I added some bling and a bow, which means it's not grungy like Tim's!

The strange thing is, I was planning to make a couple of summer Mixed Media projects already, before I knew about Tim's challenge, so I already had the shells and had collected sand weeks ago. If you check back on 01 August (US time) you'll see my other project.

ETA: I'm entering this tag in the Inspired by Stamping challenge

PS: I apologise to anyone who has that Beatles song stuck in their head! I've been singing it all day!