A Stowaway Heart

I'm so happy that my October Acorns made all of you happy too!  There will be some more autumnal crafting along soon, but for today I've got a very quick post for you sharing another of my samples for the latest Alison Bomber word stamps launched at PaperArtsy last month.  We're back round to EAB12 Travel & Journeys, and one of those serendipitous pairings of words and pictures which just fell into place.

The colour palette for the Travel & Journeys set was turquoises, blues and purples, the colours of sea voyages and misty far horizons.  And the stamps from Scrapcosy's ESC11 were a shoo in for the ideas in this collection of words, and especially apt for this particular quote.

I started by doing some of my water brayering over the whole tag with a combination of Summer Sky, Smurf, Periwinkle and Forget-me-not Fresco Finish Acrylic Chalk Paints (quite a mouthful - we usually just call them Frescos around here!).

Then, for once in a blue moon, I actually did some measuring of how far up the tag the horizon line needed to come, before sweeping on a watery wash of Aquamarine with a wide brush.  I love how the earlier paint layers add variations in colour to the watery depths.












I stamped the ships sailing out of the bay using the stamp platform, so that I'd be able to give their sails a touch of Cloud 9 white and then re-stamp to retrieve the details.












The compass stamp leans in from the corner to fill up the space left as the cliffs fall away.   And the lovely map script adds extra detail.

All the stamping is done in Watering Can Archival, but for the script I swept the ink on to the stamp rather than patting it, which gives you a much softer shade (almost like a secondary stamping).













And then, of course, there are the words.  They're stamped in Jet Black Archival (a rare ink colour around here!) and then clear-embossed.













There's nothing quite like that beautiful light-catching gleam, and the tiny touch of dimension to give the words a really special look.








Some simple white twine and a white matted border and the wind is fair for making our escape... see, I didn't keep you long, did I?  Thanks so much for stopping by today and I'll see you again soon.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by...
From Sea Fever by John Masefield (one of my favourite poems, best spoken out loud, and perfect to go with this stamp set)