At the Beach with Barb

Happy June!

Here in my area of the Pacific NW we often experience what is referred to as the marine layer - dense, almost foggy, cloud cover. We're just a few miles inland from Puget Sound, so with that brooding gray, we often get the scent of the sea. Sipping coffee on one such morning, I was inspired to play with the Beach Shape Set from Gina's Designs and this above collage piece is what happened.

I wanted it to have a slightly gloomier feel, not bright beachy. I'm not a bright beachy type of person. Too much hot stand and sun and screaming kids and bright color actually kind of makes me crabby. I know... I'm strange, but I own it. So, to begin, I tore pages from an old 1930's nautical almanac and glued them to my 12 x 16" canvas board with a matte gel. 

I coated the lighthouse with white embossing powder and heat-set it. Then I stamped on it to give it some texture. I adhered yellow cardstock to the back of it to make it look like the lights are on.

For the fence, I first coated it with gesso. After the gesso had dried, I distressed it with brown and gray inks and blobbed a little more white acrylic paint on it.

For the chairs, I also began with gesso. Once that had dried, I coated them with StazOn Studio Gel in Cactus Green. When the gel was dry, I stamped on them using matching StazOn Ink.

For the sand dollars, I first coated them with gesso and let it dry. Then I smeared white craft ink all over them and coated them in an iridized embossing powder. I heat set the powder and they were done!

Gina's Designs Products Used

Beach Shape Set

Other Products Used

Matte Gel

StazOn Studio Gel

Stickles

Gesso

StazOn Inks

Embossing powder

Liquid Pearls

White Craft Ink

Compass Mask by Tim Holtz 

Tree and Arrowheads stamps by RubberMoon

Nautical Log stamp by Stampin' Up!