Summer Sizzler

My followers will know that I am Guest Designing for the Country View Crafts blog this month, and I have beavered away on my project for several days.

Hot summers, for me, must involve the beach, so that was my starting point in designing the card. Then, I pulled from my stash a stamp that would fit in with a beach scene.

The background was brayered with inks, for the sun I used several sizes of masks to produce a light halo effect and for the sand I textured the brayered layer of ink with an inked piece of pliable soft plastic (from packaging) and also with sprayed water. For good measure I added Copic At You Spica glitter pen in clear to add a subtle glint, just like sand in the sun, unfortunately the photo doesn't show this.
For waves I used a white gel pen.

The hammock was inked with a combination of inkpad and markers, then masked before brayering the background.

I then die-cut the scene with 2 sizes of dies and a pink mat with an intermediate size and layered them together to create a frame, sticking the whole thing on an A5 card blank.

Finally, lest the hammock looked like it was floating in the air, I added posts made out of toothpicks. I sanded flat one side of the toothpicks so they would be easier to stick down.

Do you feel the heat ? Hope you like this mini scene... let me know in your comments below !