Aaaar me hearties, it be another birthday card

One set I was very happy to see make it into the new Australia SU catalogue was "Ahoy Matey". Matey made sure he was part of my first order from the new catty, however I have only just gotten around to inking him up!

In case you hadn't noticed, if I have a theme, I run with it. The card is for my nephew and his who gift and presentation was centered around Matey! If it weren't for the stamp set I have no idea what we would have given him! After Matey arrived the next piece of the gift that was gathered was the wrapping paper, which helped determine a few things about the card. Then I had to track down something piratey to put inside the wrapping paper (a Pirateology book with a pirate ship you could build as part of the book). To make the card I stamped Matey with his chest beside him on some Whisper White cardstock using StazOn black. I made masks for Matey and his chest the did a bit of a wash with Barely Banana and stamped a speckled stamp from Itty Bitty Backgrounds in Sahara Sand (it didn't seem right NOT using Sahara Sand for the sand!). I then coloured Matey, his chest and parrot in with waterclour crayons using a blender pen. For the blue background I used an aqua painter to apply Tempting Turqoise for a portion above the sand to an imagined horizon, the filled the sky in with Cool Caribbean. I'm not entirely happy with the sky, water and sand but didn't want to keep touching them up in case I completely stuffed it - I really should have done them first before I spent all that time colouring Matey in! I mounted Matey on Basic Black then mounted him onto the large piece of Whisper White. I stamped "Ahoy Matey" with StazOn black on Whispher White, trimmed it to size, stuck it behind a pewter Hodge Podge frame, then mounted the lot onto the Real Red card base.