Good Monday morning. Today is day three of the Splitcoaststampers Dare To Get Dirty week long challenge event. This event is a special thank you to all of the fan club members who support the site all year long. Have you had a desire to be on the Dirty Dozen design team? This special week of challenges will give you tons of opportunity to be inspired and to show off your wonderful and creative projects right along with the current Dirty Dozen team as well as the alumni team members. Are you a member of the Splitcoaststampers Fan Club? If not go here to check out all the benefits of being a member. If you are a member hop right on over the special challenge forum here.
For those of you who have followed me on my blog posts know that creating moonlight snow scenes are one of my favorite techniques and I do a couple versions of it each holiday season. My project today has a couple different twists and turns from my normal process but I still love how it turned out. You can check out my Winter Moonlight Snow Scene tutorial if you would like to see the basic masking and sponging steps for my scene.
I masked off the ground and moon with removable tape and then applied the blue ink with an ink blending tool. I created a water ink pad for my falling snow stamp by placing a folded paper towel on a plate and pouring just enough water on it to dampen my stamp. Leaving the masks in place I used the Water Stamping Technique to stamp falling snow in the sky area. I repeated stamping the image until the whole sky was filled and then dried with my heat gun. Using water on the stamp pulled the dark ink off the stamped spots and lightly removed the blue ink and allowed some of the white paper background show through. I hope that makes sense. I removed the masks to continue on to the next step.
Hint: I use Post-it Removable Labeling Tape to create my masks. I love the stuff. But with that said it does not like to work with punches. It is just too thin and it tears the edges and wads up in the punch. I applied a small piece of tape to scrap cardstock, punched out my circle for the moon and then peeled the removable tape off the cardstock. The added weight of the cardstock allows for a good clean punch. You could do the same with a circle die.
I stamped the Impression Obsession Brush Tree line with the same blue ink that I used for the sky. I had forgotten to lightly mist the inked stamp before placing it on the scene so the image was not well defined. Ugh! I decided to try stamping it again a second time, keeping my fingers crossed that I could stamp it perfectly over top of the first image but of course I didn’t and the trees were blurred. Double ugh!! I hated to give up on the piece since I had spent so much time masking, sponging and stamping so I decided to try using a damp brush to lightly smudge the ink to create the appearance of watercolor trees. My brush was too wet and it totally blurred out the defined lines of the trees. Triple Ugh!!! I decided to take one more stab at trying to save the piece so I heat dried the trees, applied ink to the stamp, lightly misted (which I should have done the first time LOL!) and stamped directly over top of the blurred image. Wow! It worked! I was shocked and really liked how it looked.
I used my damp brush to lightly pull blue ink from the bottom of each tree section to create the faint shadows on the moonlit snow. In the past I have applied tree shadows by using a stylus and foam tip or mini applicators but I think wet brush creates the most natural shadow.
Thanks for coming by today. I hope you are enjoying the more clean and simple scenic projects I have been sharing this week.
Card size:” 4.50: square Stamp: Stampin’ Up! Petal Pushers (retired)
Note: I keep the full list of my regularly used tools in my supply links below. Some may not have been used in today’s project.
So beautiful! I’m glad you were able to save those trees and share your process with us! Your wet brush technique made great shadows, very soft and natural.
Alwasys love your winter snow scenes…..very interesting water technique…worked beautifully as the way you saved the trees….leave it to our Kittie
Really beautiful, Kittie. I just learned about the water stamping recently, so I get it. Looks nice and subtle on your sky. The shadows of the trees just finish it off perfectly…those little details really make a huge difference…something only a true artist would think to do. Bravo!!!
Beautiful and so serene. Cant believe you made three oops and this turned out beautifully. Love the snow effect and the shadow of the trees.
WOW Kitty! That is absolutely gorgeous! I hate “wasting” a project too when I had a “vision” of what it SHOULD look like. Sometimes pushing on with it is the best thing we could do. I guess that’s how we learn new things!
Great card!
WOW, Kitty. You did good. I think the card turned out wonderful. No surprise to me though.
Good Afternoon, Kittie. WOW! your mistakes always turn out so beautiful, encouragement to all of us. I love this water color effect on the trees, a beautiful peaceful scene. Cooling with the 100 degree temp. here today…..have a good day.
Trop jolie, je la garde pour cet hiver. Et rafraîchissante, en cette nuit de chaleur ! Belle journée !
Gorgeous card! I am so glad you kept going with this card and the pretty trees – it is stunning!!! Love the tree shadows!
Beautiful winter scene!!
what a beautiful and exceptional project. TFS.