Sunday 15 March 2015

Elephants

Yay! It's time for another challenge over at AAA Cards - this week the theme is Bare Naked - we are looking for one layer cards. The design team has created some amazing creations (as usual!) so please check them out - you can get to the challenge by clicking on the game image below:





I took my inspiration for the card from two places: the baby in photo and the fact that I needed to make a card for my co-worker and his wife who just delivered their very first baby boy. Here it is:




It is a very simple card with the baby elephant stamped three times - the stamp itself is a really old one from Fiskars. I then coloured the elephants with Copics - this is still fairly new to me so I kept it to two shades per elephant and then I outlined them in W1 to create some dimension. The sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted Sentimental Type - with the hashtags added in by yours truly. When it was done, I decided that it was a little bit too plain so I added some Wink of Stella to the elephants.

I will also link this card to the current Less Is More Challenge that is also about one layer cards featuring animals.

A while back, I promised to share a few of my holiday pics from Tanzania, and today seemed like a perfect opportunity to share a couple of elephant pics. I saw a lot of elephants while I was there - we got quite close to some of them when we were in our safari jeep, and we even had a couple walk into camp one evening to drink water from the open top water reservoir!!! Apparently, this is quite a regular occurrence but it was very impressive to see them so close. 

The first picture shows a baby elephant with its mother and another member of the troop. It was so cute - our guide estimated it to be no more than a few months old.



The next two pictures show two elephants that are locking their tusks and wrapping their trunks around each other. At first, I thought they were fighting but then the guide explained that it was a friendship greeting - it went on for about five minutes but I could have watched them forever - it was so beautiful and one of my favourite moments from the safari (trust me - the pictures don't do it justice!). The interaction between the two elephants (one obviously much bigger) walking off together to join the rest of the troop who were moving on to greener pastures.




A final (albeit very sad) thought on elephants... one of the things that I learned when I was in Tanzania is that an elephant is killed every 15 minutes for its ivory by poachers. I was shocked because I thought that the world had become more aware of this issue and that ivory trade had been stopped - apparently it was just moved underground to the black market. I don't know what I can do to help this other than to encourage people to travel to Africa to see these wonderful animals so that people can understand that through tourism there is more benefit to keeping them alive than killing them.

Thanks so much for stopping by!!!
Jill

13 comments:

  1. Cute card! Your baby elephant photo is TOO CUTE! :)

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  2. Super elephant trio, love how you've stamped them to be holding on to each other's tails. Brilliant safari photos too. So sad such a gentle giant is being hounded by greedy people.

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  3. Great photos Jill and your card ... well it's simply too cute for words.
    Love that stamp you've used and how you've linked the little elephants together.
    It's just fabulous. Sarah x

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  4. Ooops! Just spotted you've linked up at Less is More too.
    thanks so much! Sadly I couldn't combine mine!!!
    Sarah (LIM DT)

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  5. So sad about the elephants - I love your card. I am heading to Sengal next week - looking forward to experiencing Africa!

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  6. Super CAS baby card!
    Thanks so much
    Chrissie
    "Less is More"

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  7. Love the gradient of blue and how you used it here! Your elephant photos are absolutely priceless! Thanks for sharing!

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  8. WOW, love your sweet card!! SUPER great to be on your team!!!

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  9. That story about the elephants is shocking and awful. I know people need to make th money to live, but they should stay away from these glorious creatures. When they're gone they're gone :( that baby elephant is super cute. I love the card and love the colors.

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  10. That's an interesting post- thanks. Cute little (little?) ellie's marching make a very sweet card and wonderful gift. Hugs, Victoria

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  11. What a cute new baby card, fab one layer!
    Thanks so much for your entry
    Anne
    Less is More

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  12. What an adorable card, and what an interesting and eye opening story. The Wink of Stella was a great touch. Great one layer card. It's great to be on the AAA Team with you.

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  13. Your card is adorable! thank you for sharing the pics and the story to go with the pics...
    I spotted your comment on someone's card...and decided to come and give you a visit. Whenever I spot another "Jill" I have to say Hi! Smile.....Jill

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