Squigglefly Bubbly Baby! (and a very personal note & future blogcation plans)

On a very personal note: Well today (this week, the last couple of months....) have been interesting to say the least. After some testing & waiting in the last while..today, I heard the magical word benign! Thank You God! sniff sniff, sighhhhhhh. I'll spare you the details, but let me tell you, I did me the HAPPY dance!!! (Still doing it) :-D As you can imagine, I am ever so grateful & relieved.

Moving & Imminent Blog Vacation plans... We found out that we're moving unexpectedly for March, but it'll be more than nice to get away from the constant loud highway traffic & evil smog... BUT unfortunately, that means I'll have to schedule a short blog-vacation or two for packing (and moving) since we have WAY too much stuff. LOL.

Camera Jazz: Now, most critically for immediate blogginess, I think I fixed whatever was wrong with my camera (Canon G10). It wasn't working at all--no focus whatsoever & I only had the close shots of this card done, since it's been a week of work like crazy to catch up... Must've been a funny button I pushed. It's easy to hit funny buttons, then symbols from some lost alien civilization show up & I no speaky the language. I'm still not used to the settings--must make time to learn more and avoid future calamity...

Sorry, if that was all T.M.I. (too much information) for you, I just feel so close to y'all (I mean, with my blogmania, you're my life pretty much! heehee) and I had to shout it off rooftops (or burst!) Plus, I wanted to let you all know the blog vacation & camera scoop. All in all, Mr migraine still comes and goes as he chooses (the big ol' jerk!) ;o), but life is sooooooooh amazingly SWEET!

....And now to celebrate--with some bubbly, Baby!!!

(teeheehee)

Friends of ours just had their first baby: a healthy 9lb bouncin'
bundle of boy! (so I have babies on the brain.)

This cutie is a digital image from Squigglefly.
It's called Baby Bathing:

the artist is Eline Pelinkhoff.

When you buy the image, you get the image flipped both ways for you, --so that you can use either direction without any work on your part (or you could use both the mirror image & original at the same time! Imagine the cute reflection you could make with this and a watery floor!?!)

This lil' baby is heat embossed on metallic cardstock...

Heat Embossing a digital image
(on metallic cardstock):

Step 1) Gather embossing supplies (clear embossing powder, large tray, heat gun)

Step 2) Cut a half sheet of your semi non-porous paper (For this card, I used Quartz Stardream cardstock from Paper Temptress, but many metallic papers will work & I love using vellum cardstock too.)

The cutting is done to get it to print more quickly: so that it's still 8.5 inches wide but shorter for faster print time.) You can experiment with other paper types of course, but the stardream is a fave of mine for the sparkle.

Step 3) Print the image (I find standard printing setting the best--quick enough to keep the ink wet enough to hold the embossing powder, without sacrificing too much in the way of quality.

Step 4) Sprinkle clear embossing powder on right after printing & heat set it with a heat gun.

Step 5) Colour your image (I find Copic markers have the best staying power on more non-porous papers.)

You can also emboss digital images by painting
Matte Medium on any paper...
More about embossing with matte medium in this tutorial here.
&
some notes on matte medium embossing in this tutorial too

After embossing him, baby was embubbled ooops...
...I mean embellished! ;o)



Making the bubbles was super easy (don't pass out on me, but there was no sewing involved!) I just glued on nice shiny clear dew drops & some wee pearlized clear seed beads (you saw the bead thing coming from a mile away, hey?) I used Crystal Lacquer to stick them on, so any overflow of adhesive just looks like water.

Of course, I had to add some stitching. The gold seed beads were sewn on:

This next photo is sort of so-so, but I'd hoped it would show you the
tile texture & the shiny water:

The baby is all shiny too (so squeaky clean he sparkles!) ;o) ...since he's embossed on that metallic cardstock.

To make the shiny tiles
(and the rest of the bathroom decor):

Step 1) Punch some squares of patterned paper (This paper is from BasicGrey's Porcelain 6x6 pack fittingly enough.)

Step 2) Cut a Nestabilities label or a shape you like (this one is label 9 in white cardstock.)

Step 3) Adhere the squares onto the label shape (leaving a slight gap for tile grout.) :o) Trim off the ends of the squares that stick off the label. You could die cut it with the Nesties again, but I just used scissors...

Step 4) Stamp it with your favourite texture stamp (mine is this 2010 Vintage Calendar Stamp from Purple Onion Designs & I stamped it in pale turquoise to tie in the water colouring)

Step 5) Cover it in versamark, sprinkle with clear embossing powder & heat gun it.

Step 6) Add a floor (this one is made from more Porcelain paper coloured with a BG72 Ice Ocean Copic marker)

Step 7) Add baseboards (this one is a piece of the PT Quartz cardstock cut in a strip & scored with lines using a paper piercer & Tim Holtz ruler.

Thank You so much for taking time to visit,
& for sharing in my oh so fortunate news!

P.S. Click-able Blogger photos (to enlarge, if you like):