Stamp Soup round two - The Harbour!

Did you catch Nikky Hall on Create & Craft TV launching the fabulous new Stamp Soup collections Magic Garden and Little Kingdom? If so you may well have spotted this little canvas that I made as a sample for the launch show.

Unlike the first collection of Stamp Soup which were floral based, the new sets are designed to create whimsical houses, flowers and toadstools. That said the only limit to what you can create is your imagination! The DT discovered fairies, rockets, boats and even mice in this latest collection.

One of the first objects I visualised in the stamp collection was a boat, so I instantly knew that there would be a coastal project. After a quick rummage in my "seaside treasures" box (I have quite a collection of found objects) I pulled out a beautiful piece of driftwood, some shells and frayed out piece of rope and decided that they would sit perfectly on the reverse of a square canvas.

My only issue with the canvas was that the wood was pale, very pale and I knew that it need darkening. Unfortunately, I had already decided that I needed (wanted) to use my new Kuretake Gansai Tambi water colour paints on as many of my projects as possible and it looked like the pale frame was going to throw a spanner in the works! So.....I took a deep breath, pulled up my big girl pants and used the paints to stain the wood and knock back the white of the canvas.

To my amazement and delight it not only stained the wood but gave me faux wood effect on the canvas.

Next I added some texture paste to the bottom of the frame and once dry painted it with the Gansai Tambi paints. Incredibly the rich yellow of the sand was achieved with only one coat! The shells and starfish were a little too clean looking so again the paints were used to stain them. I then hot glued all of the embellishments in place on the frame.

I then enhanced the colour wash on the inside of the frame which creates the sky and sea before hot gluing a chunk of driftwood to the canvas to create a cliff. Once I'd glued the wood in place I decided that maybe I should've placed it at the base of the canvas to make scene building a little easier... but hey ho it was well and truly stuck! So I decided to build my layers off of the cliff face.

I used the Gansai Tambi paints to colour wash a large piece of card which was going to be the sea. Whilst the paint was still wet I chucked a load of sea salt over it and left it to dry.

In the meantime I stamped a couple of boats and a whale onto shrink plastic. The sails were decorated with floral patterns using various small stamps from the collection. I decided to experiment with the paints on the shrink plastic and guess what? It worked!

I then stamped a boat, lighthouse, whale and several clouds onto watercolour card using Stazon ink before colouring with the paints. I decided to drop sea salt onto the sail of the boat to see what would happen - the paint was much drier than the colour washed sea and so the colour didn't leach as much. However, I still think it gave a nice finish.

Watercolour Salt Background

By the time I'd finished all of the above, the colour washed sea was dry and it was time to remove the salt. I was pretty pleased with the results and thought that it looked a choppy sea, so I cut it down to fit the frame. Once it was place and secured with foam pads, I added some texture paste to create sea spray.

At this stage I felt that the project lacked something, so I decided to try a "caught in crystal" effect with the paint, tissue paper and acetate and then stamped some waves using Stazon,

The images were then placed onto the frame and secured with foam pads. To finish I added some Stardust Stickles Glitter Glue and Glossy Accents.

I hope you like my little project. I think it's kind of quirky and fun! If you decide to buy the stamps/CD's then I'd love to see what you create - feel free to email me or tag me on Facebook or Instagram.

Thanks for stopping by.

Claire x

I'd like to enter this project into the following challenges:
A Beautiful Mess - Anything goes
Craft for the Craic - Anything goes
Crafting with Friends  - Anything goes
Creative Fingers - Anything goes
Morgans Artworld - Anything goes
PDE Linky Party - Anything goes
Crafting with an Attitude - Anything goes
Crafty Girls Creations - Anything goes
Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes
Paper Minutes - Sea
Stamp Art - Anything goes
Bunny Zoe's - Transport