Here comes summer!

For this month's postcard swap on UKStampers, Sam has asked us to include wheels. I thought of summer road trips and this surfer couple in their convertible seemed like the perfect set of summer wheels!

I had some fun with a shaving foam marbled background for a retro, tie-dye look and coloured the car and the stripe down the surfboard to match the vibrant shades. As usual, it has no embellishments so it can go through the post with no envelope when we swap.

If you've never tried it - shaving foam backgrounds are fun and each piece will be unique. Just squirt a layer of  foam onto your craft mat (or other surface that's easy to wipe down). It doesn't need to be a particularly thick layer - I tend to squirt some foam and then use an old credit card to spread it out a bit. Add drops of reinker to the surface of the foam and then swirl with something like a bamboo skewer or thin paintbrush handle. Press a piece of card onto top, making sure you get contact with the inky foam all over the piece and then lift - it will look a big gooey mess at this stage! Scrape the inky foam off (I use the credit card again) and you'll have a marbled background. Wipe with a tissue or kitchen roll to remove any last traces of foam and then just leave it to dry and you can stamp on it directly or use it as a background piece.

I used Distress ink here but any dye ink is fine and alcohol inks work too - I've never tried it with pigment inks but I don't see why not. Try to choose colours that won't get too "muddy" in any areas where they mix together as you swirl.

This is actually the second background from one lot of foam - I just smoothed over the surface with the credit card after lifting the first one and added a few more drops of the inks, swirled again and pressed a second piece of cardstock on there. The first one had a little bit of Perfect Pearls as well as the ink - I'll use it for something in the future, I just happend to prefer the swirl pattern on this one for the postcard.

Stamps:
The Beach (retired CHF)

Paper: Smooth white

Ink:
Distress reinkers in Spiced Marmalade and Picked Raspberry
Brilliance Graphite Black

Other:
Shaving foam
Copic markers
Tracing Wheel
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!