Sunday, August 10, 2014

Creating Serenity....One Sponge at a time

Hello and welcome!  I have seen several cards using different sponging techniques. There are many ways to add depth to your projects using sponges.  You can use sponge daubers as well as regular sponges. Stampin' Up! has the best sponges in my opinion. At $ 3.50 per package of 3, you cut each sponge into 4 smaller pieces, so you end up with 12 sponges that you can dip into every ink pad you have, to create a beautiful card or altered project. Some people sponge the edges of their card, or the edge of a cut out piece.  I took it further and created a moonlight lake scene.  Here's my card:

There's nothing more peaceful to me, than sitting on the edge of a lake in the moonlight. I created this card using whisper white card stock and sponged all over it lightly with Wisteria Wonder first.  Then you use sticky notes and lay them down in a straight line, where you want your lake line to be. Take another sticky note and using a 1-1/4 circle punch, punch out a circle, making sure you get some sticky on the back of the circle. Place that where you want your moon. Sponge again with your next darker color. I used Soft Sky first, bringing the soft sky down the entire part of the card, for the lake area. Then I used Perfect Plum in the sky area and very little in the lake area; just enough to be like a reflection of the sky on the lake. Next, tear more sticky notes into wavy lines. Place those just above your lake line and using your darkest color (Night of Navy then Elegant Eggplant over it). Use a sponge dauber to "dot and blot" the ink into the areas where the sticky notes are. Keep moving your "mountains" in any way you want, that's the beauty of this technique.  You decide where you want those mountains to be. Make sure you leave some drying time before you go to the next area, and check the back of your sticky note.  If you see ink bleeding through, throw that piece out and make another. You don't want smudges where there will be no mountains. For the foreground area, I wanted this to be more like moonlit sand instead of mountains. So I sponged using Wisteria Wonder only. The Wetlands stamp set was used for my foilage, stamped in Night of Navy.  After everything dries, adhere this to your layer or card base, then spread a little Dazzling Diamonds onto the lake, sky and moon.  Once that is dried, VERY lightly, sponge Night of Navy over the sky area, to create "stars".
I hope you like my card.  I had so much fun creating it, and we made 2 cards using this technique yesterday. Everyone loved it..even though most everyone said it was "out of their box".  That's a good thing; that means I did what I set out to do. Teach others this beautiful craft!  Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

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