Everything in the seas, praise Him!

Hi...I'm Kim and I have the honor of being the June guest designer for Sweet 'n Sassy.

I go way back with Sweet 'n Sassy, I have stamps that have long since retired, so I was thrilled when they asked me to do this. I happily agreed to June, but it didn't occur to me at the time that the June release had the possibility of being focused on summer/ocean/seashore. Well...I have spent half of my life in Colorado and the first half in South Dakota! I haven't had much experience with oceans! So what do they send me to work with? Beauty by the Sea and Ocean Paradise!

On the other hand, maybe it's all good. We have done seaside vacations and my memories are absolutely magical. With these memories, beautiful stamps, and great sentiments, my first card came together very easily!

I love making these vertical scenes and they are actually quite easy.

In this case, I first stamped two of
the shells and then painted them
with Masking Fluid (found in the
art department) so I could add
sand and ocean colors without
coloring the shells.

The basic idea of the vertical scenes
is simply to use two post-it notes.
I like the lined post-its because
it is easy to tell if they are straight.

The rest of the layers are simply
by using torn post-its (for the sand)
and later I used a straight post-it
(for the skyline). The pink post-it
is a post-it "label" which is
excellent for masking because the
entire thing is sticky!

I like to use a brayer, but sponging
would work well also. Ink up the brayer
by repeatedly rolling it on your ink pad.
Then start rolling back and forth OFF of
your card, moving slowly toward the card.
The advantage of starting off the card
is the darker color appears when you
first hit the paper. In the above picture,
I already brayered the top of the sand -
you can see that it is darker, as would be
wet sand.

After doing the sand, I simply applied the other half of the torn post-it over the sand, added a straight post-it for my skyline and brayered the ocean. Then moved the straight post-it over the ocean to brayer the sunset from the bottom of the sky and the blue at the top of the sky. As a final touch, I lightly dotted the sand with a Sand colored glitter pen and the ocean with a clear glittler pen.

Then...the masking fluid on the shells...just rub it off with your thumb (make sure your thumb isn't inky, trust me on this!) From there, I colored in the shells with copics, added one popped shell and some twine.

It might sound a little complicated, but it actually comes together very quickly.

I have many, many other Sweet 'n Sassy cards on my blog, Joyful Creations with Kim. If you click over, just go to the Labels down the left side and find "By: Sweet 'n Sassy".

See you next week!

• Stamps: Beauty by the Sea
• Ink: Stampin' Up Soft Suede (the images and sentiment), Creamy Caramel (the sand), Cool Caribbean (the ocean), Bashful Blue, Barely Banana and Blushing Bride (the sky)
• Paper: Stampin' Up Cool Caribbean, Crumb Cake
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Linen Thread, Spica Glitter pens