Sponged Background with Paper Garden (S1509)

Today I will explain how I achieved the background on these three cards. They all started off the same way by sponging colour onto cardstock and finished off the same way by stamping in black with the silhouette stamps. I found that this month’s stamp of the month Paper Garden (S1509) perfect to show off this technique. But try it with any silhouette stamps you have.

Cut a circle out of cardstock. This will be your sun. You could cut the bottom off to make your sun or moon for that matter, to look more like it is rising from the horizon.

Circle Mask for the Sun — Stick your circle down with removable adhesive. This will ensure your sun doesn’t move while you are sponging the background.

Sponge Blue Sky over the mask — Sponge into Glacier Exclusive ink & start off on the All-Purpose Mat and bring your colour from the edge of the cardstock.

Sponge Green Grass over the mask — Next is the grass or the land. Start with Sweet leaf Exclusive Ink and build up until you have the bottom of the cardstock covered.

Sponge Green Grass — Working around the bottom edges of the cardstock sponge on Pear Exclusive ink ,again make sure you start your sponge in a round circular motion, starting off on the All-Purpose Mat and bring your colour from the edge of the cardstock.

Create a horizon with a a scrap of card, sponge over in brown — Use the straight edge of scrap card & cover the sun & sky to where you want your horizon to be. Using Saddle Exclusive ink sponge from the scrap card onto the grass area.

Remove mask to start working on the sun — Remove your circle mask

Mortice mask to allow sponging of colour in one area — Using the cardstock that you cut your circle out, mask out the sky & the grass.

Sponge Yellow in the sun — Start to colour the sun with Canary Exclusive ink. Sponge in a round circular motion, starting off on the mask. Once coloured remove the mask & sponge off some of your colour onto the All-Purpose Mat and colour around the edge of the sun & the horizon & path of sun shining onto

Add some yellow outside of the sun to blend into the sky & ground — Repeat this process with Honey Exclusive ink. Concentrate the colour on the edge of the circle. Don’t worry if you get a slight halo effect when you first remove the mask. We will blend in some more blue sky to fix that.

Add some sponged darker orange to the sun — Repeat this process with Sunset Exclusive ink again sponge in a round circular motion, starting off on the mask. Once coloured remove the mask & sponge off some of your colour onto the All-Purpose Mat and colour around the edge of the sun & the horizon& path of sun shining onto the land.

Add some red — To give more colour to the sun I also added Ruby Exclusive Ink. I only added it to one side of the sun & the horizon.

Blend back some blue in the sky & green into the grass to tone down the sun — To finish off I have add more Glacier & Crystal Blue ink to the sky & more Sweet leaf & Pear ink to the land.

Spritz on some water & heat dry for a creative effect — spray the background with water before you stamp your silhouette image. I used our CTMH Spray pen filled with just water! Look at the effect! It looks like bleach but it is just water. Dry off with a heat gun before adding your stamped image with Black Exclusive ink.

Hints & Tips

I cut my Round Sponge into eights that way I have a small piece to work with & have a sponge for all my colours.

So what do you do if you drop the sponge & it has gone where you don’t want it to like in this sample? Don’t worry, blend some more blue into that sucker! Normally when the sun is rising or setting you have some of the colours of the sun & more in the sky. Embrace these mistakes it will make the piece unique. You will find too that as you add more colour it is easier to spread on the cardstock than when you first started.

You now have your sponged background to stamp Paper Garden (S1509) onto. Or you could take it a step futher!

Add some wispy clouds to the sky by sponging Colonial White Exclusive ink. Sponge off the excess ink first onto the All-Purpose Mat before sponging onto the sky.

Paint over the background with water for a different effect & then Stamp on Paper Garden onto the background On this piece I used water again but painted it on with a small paintbrush. It didn’t go as I expected but it is still pretty effective & a different look from a piece that started off the same way.