October 1 means I get to share another 2 Crafty Critter Crazies Design Team creation! This month we are working with Beccy's Place!
Beccy has a full and diverse line of products ranging in styles, so choosing the digital stamp I wanted to use was REALLY hard! Just when I thought I had it narrowed down, I'd spot something else and have to start all over again deciding. In the end, my love of all things nautical drew me to this very realistic octopus, a part of the By the Seaside digital stamp set.
I had a lot of different ideas for how I might want to use this image. However, I was consistently drawn to how the octopus appeared to by looking up at something. I decided I wanted it to look like it was slowly surfacing without actually showing a water line. Solution: the illusion of sun rays!
This was actually pretty easy to accomplish! I came across a very large home decor stencil from the 80s that I'd inherited into my stash. While this made the rays wider than I'd originally pictured, I couldn't resist using something that I'd never used. The stencil also offered the convenience of being layered so I could use multiple shades without a lot of thought (automatic masking for the win). I grabbed a 4" x 5.25" piece of white cardstock and the first layer of the stencil and blended a soft blue color. I then followed up with the second layer stencil and slightly darker blue. Finally, I worked back and forth between the two colors for a bit softening edges some and creating more speckling to mimic underwater dappling. The final step was blending in a darker shade still in the bottom right corner where I knew my octopus would go.
Before I went much further, I wanted to make sure I found a place for the sentiment. The bottom left corner of course begged for one. Since I knew I was about to put a lot of work into the octopus, I didn't want to draw too much attention away from it, so I knew I wanted something smaller and more subtle to the scene than a banner. I landed on this very appropriate sentiment from an older Hero Arts kit. A little bit of silver heat emboss and I was good to go!
"Go with the flow" seems very appropriate right now, doesn't it?
So now we get to the focal point image: this lovely, detailed octopus! Since I now had my background designed and knew where the "light" was coming from, I started by coloring the whole thing a light gray. I followed up with a darker gray on spots and in folds, as well as lower tentacles since those would be blocked from the sunlight. Finally, I wanted to add just a little more color and allude to a mild iridescence. To do that, I added purple to the tentacle suckers and then in a few other crevices and and spots. All in all, coloring it was super simple! Where I earn bonus points is in fussy cutting! There are a lot of curling ends and spaces created by overlapping tentacles. The detail is one of the things that attracted me to the image! But I definitely needed to focus with my tiny scissors. where the space was too fine for scissors, I used my Exacto knife. Since that's what I worked with long before die cuts, I've never really lost my patience for it! All in all, I think it paid off and was worth the effort!
All that remained after that was adhering the octopus with a fine tipped liquid glue. I thought a few shimmery sequins added a nice glitter and looked like bubbles (as well as making sure the sentiment wasn't too subtle)!
Thanks for visiting and reading! Please check out the other awesome contributions by the design team this month and be sure to support Beccy's Place! With a variety of styles, you're gonna find a lot to love!