Summer is in full swing and I hope you are all enjoying your holidays! It is the time of the year to be outside and get a tan, do summer sports or simply relax and have a good time out in nature.
Sports & More
is the theme of Emerald Creek's actual dare and "more" can be hardly anything you can connect to "being outside" (at the beach, on or in the water, in the mountains, forests, hills...well...I guess you get it).
I - for my share - declared collecting shells being a sport too. lol
But when you walk the beach for several hours each day collecting shells, I guess you can call it that. Right? (I did that when I was on Paradise Island in the Caribbean some years ago and it is one of my favourite holiday memories).
So here's my "Sports & More" tag for you:
Real sea shells can be a bit tricky to use on craft projects (especially if you want the project to stay as flat as possible) - so I decided to try create "faux shells" by using the gorgeous "Shocked" rubber stamp from the Emerald Creek stamps range with some air hardening white clay!
I hope you like the result as much as I do!
Emerald Creek Products used:
other supplies used, available at Emerald Creek:
Here's how I did it:
I rolled out some white Fimo Soft clay, sprayed it with water and pressed the stamp into it. Then I cut off the excess clay using the tip of a thin palette knife.
This special clay can be hardened in the microwave within a few minutes! I sanded the hardened shell shape for a softer edge using sandpaper.
I dabbed on some distress stains for a first layer of paint:
Then I sprayed on some gathered twigs Distress spray stain and heat dried everything. The Distress spray stain seeped into the stamped crevices and thus made the shell's texture more visible.
But it also tinted the whole shell's surface and sanding some of it down here and there revealed the lighter colours underneath which made the shells look weathered and worn and even more natural!
Time to create the background for my tag! I used Distress paints in various blues alongside some broken china Distress spray stain for the marbling technique.
Then I scraped on some white Distress paint directly from the bottle with a palette knife and immediately sprinkled on some "Mercury Rising" Emerald Creek embossing powder.
After that was melted with the heat tool, I repeated this step with Emerald Creek's "Ultra Puff White" embossing powder. This one melts to a rough surface which is perfect for a sandy feel to add to my tag.
Then it was all toned down by adding some gathered twigs Distress ink using a blending tool. The blues and the brown from the ink mix to a gorgeous "beach-y" bleached yellow-ish tone!
Some spritzes of water and drying with the heat tool to add additional stains!
So far for my finished tag background:
Time to fix my shells, rafia ribbon, chit chat stickers and ideo-ology ribbon!
And here we are!
I hope you like my "faux sea shell" tag and technique! You can create as many shells as you need with just a bit of clay and a rubber stamp! How cool is that!
Make sure you check out the projects of my fab teamies too! And I hope to see you over at the Emerald Creek Dares blog soon! There is a $25 voucher waiting for one lucky winner!
Hugs, happy summer and happy crafting!
Claudia
xxx
