My New Friend!

Hi there!

It's the Blog Hogger again with an update on my newest, greatest, most fabulous friend!!! Woohoo! (Now, for all of my other friends out there, don't despair! I still count you as friends, albeit just not as much fun! lol)

So, who's my new friend? Just scroll down to see . . .

I love, love, love my brayer! (Wow! I never thought I'd say those words!!!)

See the pretty card she helped me make?

I actually made a picture tutorial to share with you.

Supplies:

• The Open Sea stamp set
• Night of Navy, Marina Mist and Whisper White cardstock (cs)
• Soft Sky, Marina Mist, Island Indigo, So Saffron, Night of Navy, Whisper White Craft and Black Stazon ink
• post-it notes, White Gel Pen, 1" circle punch, sponges, brayer (preferably one with big eyelashes) lol

I cut a piece of Whisper White cs 3 1/2" x 4 3/4". Then I punched a 1" circle out of a post-it note and sponged So Saffron ink into the resulting hole to make the sun. (Careful: Don't make it too dark. I did and had to lighten it later using White Craft Ink.)

Next I covered up the sun with the punched out part of the post-it note. Then using a larger post-it note to cover up the bottom 1/2 of the cs, I used my brayer to ink up the sky with soft Sky ink, starting at the top and working toward the post-it note.

Then I flipped the cs over and used the brayer from the other side. (I did this because the circular post-it piece was causing the ink to come out darker on one side than the other.) Again, I worked from the top of the sky toward the post-it note "horizon".

Next, I re-positioned the post-it note so that it covered the sky and brayered Marina Mist ink onto the cs starting at the bottom and working toward the post-it note.

I did the same thing with Island Indigo ink, keeping it to the bottom of the cs. (Be careful: The Island Indigo ink is very dark and you don't want to cover up all the Marina Mist.)

Next I sponged a bit of Soft Sky onto the horizon so there would be more of a definition between the sea and sky. I used the post-it note to make sure the line was sharp.

Then I used the corner of the Marina Mist ink pad to make some lines across the Marina Mist to simulate waves.

Note: This next step doesn't have to be done if you kept the sun very light in the first step. I felt mine was too dark so I used White Craft ink and a sponge to lighten the sun. Yes, I went outside the lines but it gave the sun a softer look.

I finished up by inking up the ship from the The Open Sea stamp set, trying to avoid the "sea" section on the stamp. A little bit of it showed up anyway so I used a sponge and Whisper White Craft ink to lighten the effect further and it ended up looking like a shadow of the ship in the water. Then I sponged a bit of Island Indigo underneath the ship.

I made some highlights using the White Gel Pen, sponged around the sky with Marina Mist ink and sponged around the edges of the sea with Night of Navy ink.

Then I used a Night of Navy card base cut at 5 1/5" and scored at 4 1/4", and a Marina Mist section cut 4 7/8" x 3 5/8". I stamped another ship, cut it out and mounted it on Dimensionals over the original ship.

And there you have it! I'm getting more comfortable using the brayer and having fun in the process.

Rolling hugs,
Colleen, aka the Blog Hogger