Boardwalk Bathing Beauty

Hello everyone, and a warm and sunny welcome to you.  After the high drama of my Underwater ATC, we're sticking to the beach theme but you'll be glad to here that our heroine today is well and truly alive!  


She's one of the wonderful Bathing Beauties from Artistic Outpost's latest release, Boardwalk - and she's gorgeous.


She did put in an appearance on my little beach hut, but I love her so much that I thought she deserved a tag all of her own.


Don't forget that until June 8th, all stamps are 15% off at Artistic Outpost - hurry!


I found myself in a "beach" colour palette for all my Boardwalk projects so far - the aqua of the water; a sandy, ivory hue; and the natural whites and browns of stone and wood.









For the background here, I really wanted to try to capture the oscillating shimmer of light on water, not only of the sea but also of swimming pools.












So there's some watery wrinkle-free distress technique, with some added spritz and flick; and then some stencilling with Picket Fence Distress Stain for those architectural reflections you get at an outdoor pool or lido.












I stamped the bathing beauty herself in Jet Black Archival, and cut a mask so that I could stamp the delicious beach hut behind her in Coffee.

I wanted a watery, reflective look for the sentiment too, so embossing was clearly called for... 

And I'm so pleased with how it came out - more by luck than judgement! 

I did a very light Coffee stamping - having swiped the ink onto the stamp rather than tapping it.








Then I clear embossed it, adding a few sprinkles of Antique Linen Distress Embossing Powder to the mix (that's what the sandy beach is created out of at the foot of the tag).

I love that the only place it's really brown is over the white stencilled areas - everywhere else it has mixed with the blue beneath to give a wonderful sort of translucent sea-green.

I stamped two Pier tickets - Coffee and Black mixed onto the stamp, which I think gives a great vintage look to the "printing" - and attached them with one of the adorable Idea-ology paper clips.

They're layered over some delicious "fishermen's netting" which was another one of the doodads in my candy win from the fabulous Cat Kerr.  I was doubly lucky that so many of the bits and pieces were beach and/or nautically themed!











Some sunshine coloured ribbons (I think it was Scattered Straw I used on the seam binding, with maybe a bit of Antique Linen thrown in for good measure) tied off with pale twine finishes the whole thing off.

Well, I hope that's offered you another taste of summer at the beach, whatever your own weather is getting up to at the moment.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by - I am so grateful for each and every comment and visitor.  See you out there in Craftyblogland!

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'd like to enter this for the following:
Tag Time at Fashionable Stamping Challenges
Tag It at Pan Pastel UK