Let's Make a Fortune in Farfaroffland!

Servus and welcome back to another dare the Emerald Creek DT is asking you to face!

This fortnight the theme is an "Anything Goes!" - so craft, paint and stamp away and have a good time! And don't forget to share and enter the challenge of course ;)

I took the opportunity to finally lay my hands on some of Emerald Creek's wonderful nautical themed stamps and the Ultra Puff White Emerald Creek embossing powder. I just fell in love with the beautiful whale, octopus and compass rose stamps at first sight - and as my son too loves everything ocean themed I knew I had to have these and use them to create a map of a far off land with loads of treasures and adventures waiting for the brave traveller (or maybe pirate).

And it was also about time I used my Brushos again! These are perfect for getting random shapes of possible continents and islands, lakes and oceans! I sprinkled some Brushos onto some heavy aquarel paper and sprayed them with water until the paints began to react and float. The first layer was done with a huge amount of water and I simply used another sheet of aquarel paper to dab off any excess water and paint by placing it on top and pressing and rubbing until it was all soaked up. Then I used a filbert brush to add some coast lines and additional ocean depth where needed.

To prevent the Brushos from re-activating when getting in contact with any moisture (as in paints, ink pens, Distress markers, gel pens and such) I sealed everything with a generous coat of matte spray varnish before I proceeded.

Then I stamped my whales, octopusses and the compass rose in black archival ink and once that was dry I coloured and toned down the images using Distress markers.

I used a blue Faber Castell PITT artist pen to draw in coast lines, rivers and lakes and an ultra fine tip black Faber Castell pen to draw in the routes and cities and write the names.

The compass rose was coloured using a white gel pen and Distress markers.

The glaciers on the mountain regions were done using an embossing pen and EC Ultra Puff White embossing powder. It looks great because it stays matte and adds a lot of texture to projects!

 I tore off some of the edges.

My map still needed latitudes and longitudes and the Line to make it a real map. I drew them freehand and as you can see by the heavily arched latitudes the planet these continents are on has to be a lot smaller than our Earth. Hm....maybe it also is rather oval shaped than a precise sphere if I look at it closely...lol

My son - who pays a lot of attention to detail and authenticity pointed out that I should colour the torn edges too and maybe add some "pirate-ish" items when photographing my finished piece. And right he was! So I went in again with some brown Distress markers, collected some of my treasures....

...et voilá!

Oh...before I forget to mention: I got a pat on the shoulder and a huge smack on the cheek for my efforts. Ain't I a happy mom? :)))

I hope you enjoyed your visit today and will also pay my wonderful teamies a visit to learn about their fabulously inspiring makes! See you over at Emerald Creek Dares!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia 

xxx