Bursting your own bubble

We live in a strange bubble. Brian Molko


There have been times in the past, whilst suffering with depression, I had described life as like a bubble, or living within a goldfish bowl and feeling everyone was looking in and observing me like I was a ruddy big goldfish or something.  Then, one day, the bubble burst and I was able to breathe more freely and see myself and my surroundings for what they really were.  I made some big life changes and have never looked back.  I am happy, I am loved and I love.  Most importantly, I stopped caring what other people thought of me and decided to be happy within myself and focus on the more important things in life.  Having fancy holidays and financial security does not shape my life at all now, instead I am happy with what I have and am surrounded by people I love and that is what truly matters in life don't you think?

I love trying something different and learning new skills and being into crafty things, this soft spot of my personality comes in very handy indeed.  I take inspirations from anywhere and anything and if I spot a technique or style I like, I am away to my craft desk to try and emulate it and master whatever it is.  One of the card styles I like is foldy cards.  I have done quite a few easel cards in the past year and ventured into trying different sorts of folds, but I spotted a different sort of fold on my travels and decided to have a go myself.

The image I have used is Michelle Perkett's Princess Oceana, a wonderful digi stamp I chose as part of my prize for a challenge I won.  Isn't it just fab?  I love the way her hair can be coloured in more conventional colours or totally differently in blue tones like I have done here.  I have used my newly acquired technique of colouring dark to light with promarkers and I think it looks like waves of water.  Well that was my intention anyway!  I trimmed her using my favourite deckled rectangle nestie and then cut a bigger one with brown paper and sprayed it with white pearl shimmer mist.  The spray adds an almost water bubbles effect I think.  I then added a couple of clear blue gems to the corners of the image.

The base of the card I folded to create three waves using dark blue card which I had sprayed with white pearl and it has come out looking like a myriad of tiny bubbles which was perfect for my plan for this card.  The papers on each wave are from stock, I can't remember where I got them from, sorry (though I think it might be papermania?) and were cut to leave a border visible on each wave to show off the effect on the card.  I think the papers look quite shell like and fitted in wonderfully with the blue and brown theme I had planned.

The next bit was a new idea to me, incorporating acetate into a foldy card... wasn't sure if I would be able to do it, but it worked.  I always worry when I do a foldy card that the recipient won't be able to stand it up on display as not everyone in the world knows what an easel card is.  Here I have used a piece of acetate sheet stamped with silver bubbles and cut to size to hold the whole thing together, so when it is folded into an envelope, it will come out and almost pop up so it will be obvious how it stands up!  The acetate is secured to the card with brads so no glue or tape is visible and therefore can't come undone (another of my fears of sending cards through the post - the recipient opening the envelope and random pieces fall out loose).

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Michelle Perkett Studios - Colour Challenge Blue and Brown
Fab 'n' Funky Challenges - Do it more than once (more than one fold)
Karen's Doodles - Challenge 55 More than one fold
Shannon's Sentiments - Unusual Fold