{Spotlight Project} Becca Takes on the Ocean

Happy Tuesday, STAMPers! Today I'm going to talk about happy accidents and share with you how they can lead to one eye-catching card.

I'm a big fan of not wasting ink and earlier this week I was working on a project that involved me watercoloring an image with Distress Oxide inks. At the end of the project, I'd schmeared wayy too much ink onto my craft mat, so I decided to just see what would happen if I used a Distress double dipping technique to lift it up.

If you're not familiar with the double dipping technique, what you want to do is schmear some ink directly onto a craft mat (I'm a big fan of the Ranger Craft Mat because it works perfectly with distress products, and it's an easy breezy beautiful cover girl to clean up).

Spritz your schmeared ink with some water (not too much) and run your cardstock through it. I always use heavy weight 110 lb cardstock for this technique, otherwise your paper will pill and become grainy. Some people prefer to use watercolor paper, but I find that it takes a lot of ink to saturate the paper fully, and the colors don't always turn out as vibrant.

Oxides are different than Distress Inks because they turn slightly chalky and dry matte. Instead of blending, they layer over each other, creating really unique patterns. 

Here's a close up of my finished background.

It might have started off as an accident, but I totally loved what happened, and I instantly had a project in mind to use this lovely, inky mess with.

I pulled out a stamp from the Mixed Media Grunge stamp set and created a little smattering of a seashore by stamping it with brown Distress Inks and lightly going over it with a damp brush.

Next, I took the little lighthouse from the Gone Postal set and stamped in using a non-waterproof black ink. Again, using a damp brush I pulled some of the ink into the image to shade it.

I added some water to my scene with some more Distress Inks, and tore the base of my focal image piece to give it a rustic look.

I smudged my edges with some brown distress inks, and used a sentiment to complete my design.

All in all, I loved the dreamy softness of the background and am so glad for happy accidents. Do you have a happy accident you'd like to share with us? Link it up in the Spotlight Gallery.