I have tried a few times to do a sunset scene where the sun reflecting in the water can be seen, but every time it has looked artificial and contrived. Finally with the help of another card making blogger I think I got it right…well at least closer to realistic.

Initially when trying to get the reflection I was masking off sections of water to sponge in a yellow and orange colour so it looked like the sun was beaming onto the water. It looked ridiculous – not even worth sharing a photo of it! Then on one of the Facebook pages I follow saw a card posted by Lisa Tedder from Tedder Bear Stamping. She had created a scene similar to what I had been doing; setting sun, water, sand plus a few other things. You can see her gorgeous card here. What I noticed was that she had the sun nicely reflecting in the water, even better she had a video on her website showing how she had created it.

In the end it was much simpler to achieve than I was making it – when you are sponging the water, just go lightly in the area where your sun would reflect….that’s it. Her video describes it really well – much better than I could in a blog so check it out.

Below is my finished product, I am really happy with it. Still room for improvement but so much better than what I had previously produced. One of the gorgeous day care teachers at my son’s daycare is finishing tomorrow so this will make a nice card for her – I hope she likes it.

For this card, I sponged the sky in Daffodil Delight, Watermelon Wonder and Peekaboo Peach. The sun was masked with a 1″ circle, which I pulled off half way through to give it a little colour underneath so it wasn’t start white. The ocean is sponged in Tempting Turquoise, with the water ripples stamped in Bermuda Bay (the same water colour combo that Lisa used – love it!). The sand is stamped and then sponged in Tip Top Taupe. Both the impressions of the lighthouse (it’s created using two different stamps stamped on top of each other) are stamped in Dapper Denim.

Let me know what you think of this one 🙂