Ocean Adventure Watercolor Card

I am hanging out at the ocean for a few weeks. We are at Seaview in Washington and will be moving on to the ocean in Oregon next. I wanted to make an ocean travel card today, so that is what I did:) I cut some watercolor paper (140lb cold press). I used the Memento re-inker teal zeal and made a wet ocean mess on my craft mat then put the watercolor paper face down. After that I applied a few drops directly in strategic locations and sprayed water and watched it spread. I heat dried it. I then stenciled some texture using hickory smoke. This is for a color challenge so next I applied some taupe to the edges. Next, I decided to distress the edges and applied more taupe. I added a seashell phrase using taupe and then added a black seahorse over that.

The ocean set I used is from Stampin' Up and is a favorite of mine. Over the Hickory Smoke "netting" stencil I added a black anchor seal. I then wanted yet more texture so I got out broken china and stenciled some swirlish watery looking stenciling across the top and down by the netting. I followed that with blobbing water droplets by hand and wicking that off with a paper towel. At this point the paper had a lovely texture to it.

I stenciled on some wordes in taupe. The first die I applied is a wave die that I colored with both broken china and taupe and I placed it right over the word discover which is still legible. The focal sentiment is taupe and red and below that the words explore and journey are stenciled in yet more taupe. I added a coral die cut with two small seashells (popped one up) and placed a starfish in red and taupe popped up with a dimensional over by the seal. The final touch were some colored enamel and a few clear dots. 

I matted it with taupe and black, both very thin layers and I popped up the taupe layer with dimensionals above the black.

I am entering this project in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge  - Splash it on
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge  - Showers or flowers
• Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday - Showers or flowers
• Splitcoast Stampers Color Challenge cc631 - dessert=travel