Under The Sea

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog where this week our theme is...By The Sea! There are so many wonderful products that can be used for this challenge and we can't wait to see what you create and how you interpret the theme...

For my project, I created a wallhanging which was inspired by the film that I was watching at the time ~ Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl. So, with this in mind...I recreated the story of Davy Jones' Locker, complete with a black pearl!

...and here's how I created this piece.

I started by creating my watery background and inspired by Tim Holtz's wonderful backgrounds on a recent tutorial that you can see HERE, I used a piece of Yupo paper which I swiped through Aqua, Citrus, Pool and Gold Mixative Alcohol Inks, picking up all the colour to create this beautiful marbled effect to the card before using the Bubble and Ringer Layering Stencils, together with Alcohol Blending Solution to create layers on the background.

Once I was happy with this, I added some splashes of paint, Salty Ocean and Picket Fence and also some white paint lines/scratches around the border. I then mounted the background onto kraft card and stamped the Postcard wording across the top in Jet Black Archival Ink.

Next, was to create the embellishments to recreate Davy Jones' Locker and for this I used the Mariner Blueprint Stamp set and stamped the crab and the anchor onto watercolour card. I then coloured each of them with Distress Marker Pens and fussy cut around the outline of the main image.

I wanted to add some metallic elements and for this, I die cut some silver metallic kraft core card stock using the Gearheads Thinlits dies and layered the die cuts to create five gears. I added a gold pearl to the centre of each gear.

For the netting, I cut two small sections of cheesecloth, left the one white and then spritzed the second piece using Salty Ocean, Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn.

Now to build up all those elements...

...and I started by placing the white cheesecloth across the alcohol inked background card, attaching them with a small dot of Collage Medium to hold it securely in place and added a ticket, tucking it underneath and just curling and inking the ends.

I wanted the crab to be quite raised from the project, so after much deliberation I found a piece of packing foam and cut a small square section. I glued this to my project and then covered the foam with the coloured cheesecloth before attaching the crab over the top. At this point I also added small amounts of frayed Linen Ribbon.

I added the metallic gearheads around the crab, just tucking them underneath the cloth and then I added my little message in a bottle.

For this I used a corked vial, alcohol inked the glass for a more vintage look and then popped a Big Chat sticker inside. I attached the bottle using Glossy Accents.

As a final touch, I needed my black pearl and placed this next to the bottle.

Now that the main section was complete, I needed to create a frame and for this, I cut a piece of canvas paper and added a wash of Picket Fence Distress Paint over the top. I then used my Distress Crayons and scribbled them over the top of the painted canvas paper and blended them out with a semi dry wet wipe.

Once happy, I machine stitched a double border around the edge before adding some texture applying Texture Paste through my favourite Dot Fade Layering Stencil.

Once the paste was dry, I added a some more crayon over the top, just to take away the whiteness of the paste and inked around the edge with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I matted the finished background onto corrugated card, followed by a piece of Black Soot Kraft Core Core'Dinations card before I mounted my artwork onto the centre of the matted layers of card.

I used one of Tim's Display hangers, added a Remnant Rub to the central section of the hanger, which had a small amount of Mushroom alcohol ink applied to it.

Finally, I attached the stamped anchor to a piece of chain and hung the anchor over the clip of the hanger.

I really hope you love this project and love my inspiration behind it...

As always, if you need any further inspiration for this challenge, then you need look no further than our blog to see all the wonderful creations from all the very talented Design Team members and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....

Thank you so much for all your visits today and hope you all have a great week ahead

See you again soon...love Emma xx

Products used:
Tim Holtz Stamps: Postcards, Mariner Blueprint

Tim Holtz Sizzix Dies: Gearhead Thinlits

Distress Paint: Picket Fence, Salty Ocean
Distress Spray Stains: Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron, Salty Ocean

Distress Marker Pens
Distress Crayons: Set 1

Distress Ink: Walnut Stain
Alcohol Inks: Mushroom, Pool, Aqua, Citrus, Gold Mixative and Blending Solution
Layering Stencils: Dot Fade, Ringer, Bubble

Idea-ology: Special Delivery Remnant Rubs, Display Hanger, Journaling Ticket, Corked Vial, Big Chat

Surfaces: Kraft Core Core'Dinations, Yupo, Metallic Kraft Core, Textured Surfaces

Ranger Texture Paste

Jet Black Archival Ink

Glossy Accents

Prima Glass Pearls Memory Hardware

Prima Louviers Antique Chains

Ranger Craft Sheet

Scissors

Heat Gun

Blending Tool
Alcohol Ink Applicator Tool
Palette Knife
Big Shot
Cheesecloth and canvas paper from my own stash