Happy Friday, everyone -- Sharon here with you today! I hope you all have enjoyed seeing all of the "last of summer" inspiration this week on our blog hop and here in the CLASSroom, using some of the FANTASTIC new Essentials by Ellen release! I couldn't help but pull out some of my favorite vacation photos from just a few short weeks ago, to create this 8-inch scrap page (all bold products are linked below in the supply section):
(Click on any photo for a larger view)
My youngest typical teenager -- walking on the beach, with cell phone glued in her hand, LOL! But Pokemon Go had just come out and to be fair -- my kids persuaded me to download it, too, and play (and walk!) along, exploring the beach!
Here's how this page came together:
I started with an 8-inch Neenah Solar White base. Next, I used two pieces of the same Pinkfresh Studio-Life Noted 6x6 paper and pieced them together, side by side, to span the width of the 8-inch page. I liked the nice white border left to work with at the top and bottom of the page and this is a great way to use the 6x6 papers on a larger format page!
At the top, I stamped and die cut the largest pineapple from Stay Golden and popped it up on foam tape. The great sentiment (don't you LOVE that font?!!) is also from Stay Golden.
I used the same technique on this pineapple as I did on one of my Tuesday blog hop projects and promised stepped-out instructions for it, so here they are:
The pineapple was created using Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers. I started with the large solid pineapple and colored directly on the stamp, using #52 Bright Yellow and shaded the lower right with a little #61 Light Brown.
Spritz the stamp with a little water, then stamp onto watercolor paper. You may need to adjust how much water is sprayed onto the stamp, to achieve the results you like; for me, it was usually two spritzes from about 10 inches away. Next, the criss-cross patterned stamp was colored with the #61 Light Brown Zig marker, spritzed with water, and stamped on top of the stamped pineapple:
A little more color can be added to the stamped and dried image, if needed. I added a little #51 Lemon Yellow.
For the leafy top of the pineapple, I used Zig #41 Light Green and shaded with #40 Green. Below, you ca see I didn't spritz the stamp with quite enough water and was left with some splotchy leaves.
A waterbrush came to the rescue! Using plain water, just move and blend some of the stamped color around a little!
For the photo frame, I used Taylored Expressions On The Line-Beach die. This set comes with a bunch of cute accessories that can be hung from a line you can place between the two palm trees. I chose to just use some of the accessories in the sand: two sea shells, two seagulls, a crab and the surf board ... aren't they fun?!! I die cut them all from Neenah Solar White cardstock and colored them with these Copic markers: E42,43 (tree trunks, sand); R22,27 (crab, shells); CO,C1 (birds, shells):
The surf board was die cut from another paper pattern in the Pinkfresh Studio-Life Noted 6x6 paper pad -- there are some really fun patterns in this line of papers, with some great coordinating embellishmets!
I wanted the palm greenery to match the pineapple top, so I die cut the palm leaves from watercolor paper and colored them with the same Zig Clean Color Markers I used on the pineapple. First, the #41 Light Green -- just scribble it onto the paper:
Then I used the waterbrush to move the color around and blend:
Next, I added in a little darker #43 Olive Green, and finished with the mid-tone #40 Green:
The Taylored Expressions On The Line-Beach die cuts only the inside halves of the palms. For the left tree I cut an additional matching palm half and made it a full tree (great versatility)! And note the cute coconut accents (also from the On The Line-Beach die set)!
The page was finished with a sprinkling of Doodlebug Sprinkles Beetle Black Glitter enamel dots and a little journaling using Copic Black 0.3 Multiliner.
Thank you for joining me today! I hope you found a few techniques or tips to try and certainly hope you are holding on the last bit of summer, just like I am . . . Ironically, it's been raining for the past four SIX days here!
~ Sharon
