Mist, ink and splatters tutorial

Hello friends! We are home after having had a wonderful time visiting my family. We spent time in a cabin at the sea, built sand castles, collected shells, went for walks, did a lot of different outings, some watercolor painting, took a ton of photos, went to a combined zoo/amusement/water park, went to one big and one small island, and swam in lakes and in the sea. The weather was warm (too warm some days) and sunny the whole time, and yesterday we had our first rainy day since the beginning of May. I took a lovely walk in the rain.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Sprinkles and Splatters theme. I hope you can join us and don't forget to check out the beautiful project by our August guest designer Anne Redfern.

The theme made me think of the sea, water and splatters and I also used different splatters on the page. I like having some pages in my art journals that are clearly seasonal, and when looking through a journal it makes me remember the time and season when I made the page. So here is a super summery page. We didn't see any palm trees on this holiday, but I thought it was fun to use those stamps any way, symbolising a relaxing time at the beach. I used stamps and dies from Simon Says Stamp Friendly Frolic and Good Vibes releases.

On a piece of watercolor paper, white emboss the background scenic stamp from the Surf's Up set. I cut the paper so that it would fit into my Small Creative Journal, but you can of course use a bigger or smaller paper, or make a card instead. 

Use the coordinating Surf's Up die set to die cut a circle from SSS Masking Paper. Also, die cut the word 'happy' from the masking paper. Adhere to the watercolor paper. I smeared a little Distress Micro Glaze around the circle.

Mist the page with Distress Spray Stain. I wanted a sandy look at the bottom and water/sky for the top. Mist quite far above the paper to create a splattered look.

Remove the masks. I particularly like the look of the word.

Stamp images from Surf's Up on watercolor paper. All except the towel were stamped with black ink.

Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a paint brush. Watercolor the images. Die cut three clouds from SSS White Diamond glimmery cardstock. Die cut the colored images with the coordinating dies.

Smear more Distress Ink on the craft sheet and watercolor the scenic background. The wavy parts in the foreground can be both water and beach, and the half circle that I turned into a big sun, can also be a tropical island.

I have a thing for small sentiment stamps and these from the Tabbed Sentiments set are great and so versatile. They coordinate with the Simple Tabs die set, but quite a few also fit perfectly on the little clouds.

Splatter some white paint on the background - do this before stamping the background with sentiments - but because I forgot, I simply covered up the words with pieces of paper to avoid splattering paint on them.

Die cutting words or shapes from masking paper is a fun technique which gives a great result. You can also use it with ink or paint.

The cloud die is also from the Surf's Up set. Clouds are a fun element to add to scenes.

I am seeing lots of future uses for this scenic background, reaching beyond seascapes and beach scenes. Stamp it with black ink for a different look.

You can see the effect of the Distress Micro Glaze that I smeared around the circle here. I could have added a bit more. I really like this sentiment stamp.

Let the inks mix and blend into each other when watercoloring and leave some areas white for highlights.

The buckets are so cute. Our favorite beach has perfect sand castle building sand.

I forgot to color the beak of these funny little birds.

Another great sentiment from the Tabbed Sentiments set.

I hope you will join us this week in our Sprinkles and Splatters 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 visiting today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.