Today I have an entry for the latest challenge over at ‘Addicted to Stamps and More‘. I am a bit late for this one, but I think I will just squeeze in before they close the entries.

Challenge #257 is all about ‘Make Your Mark”. For ‘Make Your Mark’ your entry MUST contain the use of anything that can make a mark – Stampin’ Write, Copics, Promarkers, Painting, Chalks, Watercolours, Sponges, Stencils, Masks etc etc. I decided to run with the sponging and masking side of things, as I have been enjoying making a few backgrounds lately.

I recently came across the ‘direct-to-paper’ technique and thought I would combine it with some sponging and see how it turned out. I am also a big fan of creating a background and then stamping a silhouette image over the top so it went without saying that I used that here.

Direct-To-Paper is where you drag the ink pad directly across the paper you are working on. To create the sky I dragged Daffodil Delight across the width of my paper, and then lightly sponged in some Peekaboo Peach to give it a bit more colour. For the water, I dragged Bermuda Bay across the bottom section of my card. I did this very lightly so as to keep some sections of white in there.

I masked off all but the very top of the water and then sponged a horizon line in both Tempting Turquoise and Pacific Point. I finished off the background by sponging some Cucumber Crush at the very bottom to create some grass.  The tree was added last, and was stamped in basic black.