Summer Sandcastle

Hello crafty friends, Marine here with you today, back to take you to the beach and have some fun building a giant sandcastle! As always, I created a very textured background and added a few seashells in the corners, but this Sandcastle Shaker is totally self-sufficient and is definitely the star of the show, or should I say the star of the beach!

I started off by cutting a Chevron Pierced panel out of Strathmore bristol smooth cardstock, I placed the Watercolor Oval stencil on top, and covered the middle of my panel with antique linen oxide ink to create sand. I applied a little bit of vintage photo oxide ink on the edges to darken the sand a little bit, mixed the colors with my blending tools, and then added a subtle pattern to this sand section using the Mini Polka Dots stencil along with vintage photo oxide ink. At that point I knew that most of the sand would be hidden behind a vellum panel, but the polka dot pattern is cute and we still can see it through the vellum. I splattered water on the panel and dried it with a paper towel, mixed some vintage photo oxide ink with water and used a small brush to add brown splatters all over the sand section, and then did the same with copic opaque white ink.

I removed the Watercolor Oval stencil, and once the sand was dry, I temporarily taped the mask that comes with the Watercolor Oval stencil to the sand section using pieces of rolled-up washi tape at the back of the mask. I covered the rest of the panel with salvaged patina oxide ink, and created a seashell pattern using the Layered Seashells stencils: with stencil #1, I applied peacock feathers oxide ink with a very light hand, and with stencil #2 I applied the same ink but with a heavier hand to make the seashell details stand out. Just like the sand section, I added texture to my seashell border, starting with water splatters. Next I mixed some peacock feathers oxide ink with water and used my slim brush to add more splatters to the seashells, and I did the same with white ink. To finish my background, I wanted to add a foam effect along the sand edges, so I first used a sponge dauber and applied copic opaque white ink on those edges, and then I used the rounded end of a brush to add more ink. And when my panel was dry, I attached it to a light blue card base.

I used Seashell Border dies to cut six seashells out of colored cardstock, picked matching distress inks and applied ink to the edges of each seashell, mixed those distress inks with water and added splatters to the seashells. I did the same with white ink, set them aside to dry, and then worked on my Sandcastle Shaker. Here are the steps I followed to build it:

1. Cut a Sandcastle Shaker frame out of kraft cardstock using the main die and the small insert dies
2. Applied vintage photo distress ink to the edges of the castle, and added white and brown splatters
3. Cut a whole Sandcastle Shaker out of acetate, and attached the castle frame on top using liquid glue
4. Flipped the castle over, added foam strips all around it and on the middle sections as well, creating four different “rooms”
5. Poured Chocolate shaker beads inside each “room”
6. Cut a whole Sandcastle Shaker out of beige pattern paper, splattered white ink all over it
7. Peeled all the backing papers off the foam strips
8. Attached the beige castle to the foam strips to totally close the Sandcastle Shaker

I decorated the front of my sandcastle with brown gingham roofs and white glitter flags on top of each roof. Next I cut a large Eyelet Circle panel out of vellum, added white splatters all over it, stuck my Sandcastle Shaker on top right in the middle using 1mm foam squares, attached the vellum panel to my card using 1mm foam squares again, and added seashells on the corners.

For my greetings, I started by cutting the Summer Script twice: out of dark aqua cardstock and out of white cardstock. I attached the dark aqua word on top of the white word using liquid glue, shifting them a little bit to create a white border, and then stuck my Summer Script to the Sandcastle Shaker using liquid glue as well. Next I white heat embossed “Sending good vibes” from Sentiment Strips: Summer on light blue cardstock, trimmed it into a slim banner using a Sentiment Strips die, and attached that banner to the castle using foam squares.

Finally, I applied glossy accents to the Summer Script to make it super shiny, with kind of a wet effect, and added sparkles to the seashells using white blizzard nuvo drops. And that’s it!

Thank you so much for stopping by, and see you next time!