CES and Basic Grey Challenges

Don't you just love it when life is made a little bit easier for you?  That's how I felt this week when I found that the themes for my DT posts at both Basic Grey and CES Challenges could be combined!  At CES the theme is Water and at Basic Grey it's Sizzling Summer.  I then decided to make life difficult for myself by deciding to merge two digital images from Mo's Digital Pencil  - Solemn Sailor and the Beach scene from the Beach Elements 1 Set!  I'm not the greatest technical person and if something's not straightforward I just can't be bothered!!  Well, I looked around for a few tutorials but didn't have the programmes on my laptop, so in the end I just opened up both images in Photoshop and basically dragged the Solemn Sailor image onto the Beach scene - not even too sure now, how it worked but it did and I've saved the finished merge!! 

The whole image is coloured with my Promarkers and the Ultra Fine Nibs (which were a godsend for the detail work).  I've also added a bit of glitter for the breaking waves on the shore and wave tips, and also on the beach for a bit of texture. I then paper pieced the little boat he's holding to make it look like it's made from newspaper. The bubble border is a Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page set cut from Basic Grey Hello Luscious papers and then layered up onto another paper from this yummy pad.  The papers, Tim Holtz sentiment ticket, card base and promarkers are all available from Crafty Emma's store.  The netting is cotton scrim that I've coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink (and round the edges) and the little wooden stars are from my stash. 

I'm not very often satisfied 100% with my finished cards, but this one I am, not least I think because I love this Solemn Sailor image from Mo - I had two little blonde page boys dressed in Sailor Suits at my wedding many, many moons ago, and also have a great photo of my hubbie at about 5 dressed as a sailor boy.

Hope to see you joining in either or why not both the challenges, you could win a yummy  £10 voucher to spend in Crafty Emma's On-Line Store ( and she's just got loads of scrummy new papers in!)

 or for the  Basic Grey Challenge, a lovely $25 voucher to spend with our great sponsor, Simon Says Stamps.

All of my teamies have made some wonderful cards to share with you so hope you get a chance to take a look and hopefully play along!