Kathy details her challenge: Who's ready for a little sand, a little sun and a little surf? Let's take this challenge for a stroll beside the shore! Create a vintage or shabby chic project with a beachy theme. Use ocean colors and beach images to add a fun seaside feel to your project.
Rather than seaside, I went into the sea with my Tim Holtz Etcetera Mini Tag!
I chose the Graphic 45 Sun Kissed 8x8 pad just for this one beautiful paper to use on this project, but the pad is just loaded with gorgeous designs perfect for a beach themed album, card, folio or just a mixed media piece like this. I used collage medium to stick the paper down, trimmed and sanded the edges, and gave it a coat of clear gesso. I blended the edges with various Distress inks, going darker at the bottom. See those cute sea turtles? They are fussy cut from another of the papers in the pack and added to my scene to float off to deep unknown places in my imaginary sea. I added shadows with Frayed Burlap Distress ink. Maybe when they go deeper there won't be any shadows.
The reinforcing ring that comes in the tag pack was coated with gesso, and I stamped the cheesecloth pattern in Cobalt Archival ink to make it blend with the background pattern.
I made the crackled 'seaweed' in the back by swiping crackle paste through a Mini Layering Stencil over Plain Tissue Wrap painted with Prima Sparks Fairy Wings acrylic paint. If you think you see more shimmer, it's because I swiped on Prima's Vintage Silk Opal Magic Wax over the dried crackle. The sea anemones and other seaweed are die cut using Tim's Funky Floral #3 set. They were colored with Prima Coral Reef and Fairy Wings acrylic paints. Some seaweed was cut from Oxide scraps I had laying around.
The shells are die cut using Tim's Seashells Bigz die and textured using the included seashells Texture Fade. That crusty texture on the scallop shell is from Prima's clear crackle paste, and the color is from Worn Lipstick, Tattered Rose and Frayed Burlap Oxides. In real life it has a shimmery sheen from Vintage Silk wax, but sadly the camera didn't pick up that incredible pearly iridescence.
My ocean 'floor' is made with Seth Apter's Baked Textures, Deep Sea and Dirty Sand. (What could be more appropriate?)
I don't know if true solid blue shells exist in nature (I see blue tones in the real shell below), but I took a little artistic license here making a blue shell colored with Faded Jeans and Blueprint Sketch Distress inks, touched with Worn Lipstick and Tattered Rose Oxides. Both shells are edged in Frayed Burlap Distress ink. If you are looking for more ways to color your seashells and tips on how to shape them, please take a minute to check out my tutorial at Frilly and Funkie, where I've used a plethora of Distress products to make some realistic and not so realistic sea shells. No two seashells are alike! I can't wait for Tim to come out with a smaller Thinlits version!
All that was left to do was to splatter with a little Coral Reef paint and tie on a seam binding ribbon bow I already had dyed in my stash (pretty sure it was dipped in Blueprint Sketch ink) using Tim's Linen ribbon dipped in Worn Lipstick Oxide.
I'll be sharing my tag with these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Monday Stencil It I used a mini layering stencil for some of the seaweed.
Simon Says Stamp Monday Stencil It I used a mini layering stencil for some of the seaweed.
The Artistic Stamper May's Creative Challenge - Backgrounds I used two stamps--one on the reinforcing ring and one for my title. My background was collaged.
Die Cut Divas April Showers Bring May Flowers undersea flowers!
Let's Craft and Create Challenge #137 - ANYTHING GOES + option LACE, RIBBON, TWINE I got the ribbon and twine (ish).
Thank you for stopping by today and for all of your AMAZING comments!
Hugs and Blessings!
Sara Emily
The following products were used and are available at The Funkie Junkie Boutique:
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