The Beautiful Briny Sea (posted by Lesley)

For my first post using the gorgeous new Steampunk marine themed stamps I wanted to create the illusion of sea foam and bubbles and a great way of doing this is to use Acrylic Wax. This product is manufactured by the company that created Brusho. It is a white fluid that dries clear and is water and heat resistent and was actually developed to use with fabrics, but I have been putting it through it's paces with paper and cardstock.

This is a slightly longer post than normal as I want to explain how you can achieve this technique.

• Squeeze out a small amount of Acrylic Wax onto a piece of scrunched up kitchen roll and randomly dab across a blank cardstock tag. To try and achieve the sea foam effect I dabbed across the tag in four places, applying more or less wax as I went. TIP: Make sure you don't cover the entire tag or you will not be able to apply any colour. Set aside to dry thoroughly. Depending on how thickly you have applied the wax this can take up to an hour. You know when it is ready because you should be able to rub your finger over the surface without it feeling tacky.
• Next apply the colour using either brushes, sponges or Cut 'n' Dry Foam. I used Distress inks in Mustard Seed, for the sand, Peacock Feather in the middle and finished at the top with Broken China. Allow the ink to dry and then buff the whole tag with kitchen roll. 

• Because the wax acts as a resist it sealed in the plain colour of the tag underneath and only taken on the distress inks where there was no wax. For a more subtle, distressed, worn looking background apply a much thinner layer of wax, using a stroking rather than dabbing action.
• The seahorses are from Steampunk Funky Fish and they were stamped onto self adhesive labels using a Memento inkpad, coloured with alcohol markers and then finished off with coloured pencils. 
• To add interest to the bottom of the sea I stamped the coral edge stamp from Seaside Dreams using Archival ink in Orange Blossom. To get the faded appearance of the image I did second generation stamping i.e. stamped it first onto copier paper and then onto the tag.
• Finally the seahorses were cut out, stuck into place and a jumbo brad was attached at the top of the tag to finish.

I hope you get the feeling of bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea (a line from the song in the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks) and that you may be inspired to play with the Acrylic Wax.

Thanks for stopping by and watch out for more delicious creations from the girls.