Project 143: Coral anniversary card featuring KennyK mermaid

I've mentioned so many times on this blog how much I love a super-specific, personalized brief when I'm making cards for friends and this weekend I got a great one: a "coral" anniversary card (35 years) for my friend Beth's parents. 

She knew I had a mermaid stamp from Kenny K as I've blogged about her before (in fact I think I sent her that card) so she asked if I could feature her with two little orange fishes to represent her fur-children. See what I mean about specific?

The Krafty Krew who run the Kenny K blog are doing a pastle theme for their challenge - I tried to keep most of the colors in this pastel but there are a few bold ones in there as well for accents (like the coral and turquoise). 

The headline is my card for her. It's busier than some of the other cards I've made lately but even if it's busy it's all so personal I think it works. The mermaid stamp was colored in varying coral and pink shades using ProMarkers and I added a little turquoise streak to her hair and bangle just to break it up a bit. I glittered her shells in her hair, her bangle and the rim of her fin to make it stand out.

I die-cut two petals, one in a very light blue-green and the second in a spotted turquoise paper that is a bit distressed. I love using petals to frame images, particularly KennyK stamps like this. It may be a bit busy over the background coral paper (which I found in my collection - score). That's probably the only thing I don't love about the final product but once you stick it down, you're committed and all you can do is honeslty blog about it!

Finally I added a blingy 35, some bling to both her eyes and the little gold fishes (to represent her two orange cats - I just cut them out using goldfish crackers as a template. Love when snacking is inspiration!), some candy and a banner for the sentiment.

Side note: I HATE those anniversary peel-offs. This was the 4th attempt at setting them straight. I really need to get a new set, or stamp, or something else as these are impossibly thin and difficult to use.  But they're just about straight here so I called it a day.

Putting this together was a really fun challenge and I hope Beth's parents like it!