Scenic Train Card Tutorial

Hi everyone! I hope you had a fun weekend! We had a lovely swim in a lake during a soft summer rain. The water is really warm because the weather has been good for such a long time all ready. There was also the very first sleepover, which went really well, and Leo has been playing with his new airplane and a bunch of spiders. His favorite spider is a green glittery one. 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Transport It theme. Don't miss the wonderful transportation project by our June guest designer Christine Bedford with her blog Pearshapedcrafting.

The other day when I needed a card, I realized that my 'general purpose' cards, which work for almost any occasion, were in short supply, so for this week I thought I'd make one. It's a scenic stamping card of a train travelling through an open and empty desert. The train and background were colored with Distress Inks, and it is easy to do. I used Ranger's Specialty Stamping Paper, which is a lovely matte coated paper, but you can also do the same technique on glossy cardstock, and on some white papers (depending on how smoothly the ink blends on the paper).

Start by stamping the train from Tim Holtz's On the Railroad set, on Specialty Stamping Paper with Jet Black Archival ink. I used the new Detail Blending tools together with Craft Nibs to color the train, with grey, brown and black shades. Make sure to color some parts of the train darker, to create shadows and dimension. For the background, I placed a piece of printer paper along the horizon line and used that as a mask. Start with the lightest shade of ink and gradually build up darker colors.

One of the really nice things with Specialty Stamping paper is what happens when you splatter it with water. Cover the train with a piece of paper and splatter the rest of the background with water. Dab with a paper towel and you will get these lovely white splatters.

Mask the sky again, smear Ground Espresso and Black Soot ink on a craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a fine paint brush. Tap the brush to create splatters. I also extended the train tracks with a black pen.

I wanted a wispy cloudy look for the sky and got the idea to drag a pipette filled with water across the paper. It turned out pretty cool.

Finally, add highlights to the train with a white gel pen. This step makes a subtle, but big, difference.

Here's a closer look at that wispy sky. I am looking forward to using that technique again.

I distressed the edges and added a black matte under the main panel. I also added a piece of burlap. Then I layered that on one of Tim Holtz's papers, which reminded me of train tracks.

This train stamp is great and I like the combination of an old fashioned train and the sketch look of the stamp. Did you spot that I by mistake tore the paper when I distressed the edges?

The sentiment was die cut with the Sizzix Adventure Words Script set, from brown and cream paper.

When you splatter Distress Ink on Specialty Stamping paper its gets this cool effect where the ink dries darker around the edges of the splatters. This tiny detail happens to be my favourite part of the card.

I hope you will join us this week in our Transport It challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

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