Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Summer Fun

Hi Everyone! This week on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge it's all about Summer Fun. That's our theme this week. I had so much fun with this challenge, as I do with all the challenges, but this one was close to my heart. My heaven on earth is a place called Cayucos  in California. We rent a beach house right on the ocean and surf, boogie board and take long walks along the beach. It's a hip little beach town that time has not touched and it's my favorite place to spend a summer vacation.

Here's my little summer surf shack I created using Tim Holtz Village Dwelling and Surf Shack die sets.

I first cut all the pieces I needed to create the body of the surf shack. I cut out the Tim Holtz Village Dwelling from Neenah Solar White 110 lb. smooth cardstock. I cut out another set of the village dwelling from neutral corrugated cardstock. I cut away the tabs on the corrugated pieces. For the roof, I did the same by cutting the roof from Neenah Solar White 110 lb. cardstock and another set from burlap.

I wanted the beach house to have an old metal look, so I painted the corrugated pieces with Broken China Distress Paint. One coat is all that is needed.

I allowed the first coat of paint (Broken China) to dry completely. I then lightly brushed on Tarnished Bronze Distress Paint in random areas. I then set that aside to completely dry. When all the pieces were completely dry, I adhered them to the pieces that had the tabs on them cut from Neenah Solar White 110 lb. cardstock.

I adhered the burlap roof pieces to the cardstock roof pieces using Ranger Multi Matte Medium.

When the glue was completely dry, I inked the edges using Ground Espresso Distress Ink with a Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool. ( I wasn't thinking when I made my roof pieces because I didn't intend on using the small roof piece. Later, I realized I didn't need to make the smaller piece because I was using the surf shack roof from the Tim Holtz Surf Shack Bigz Die as seen below in the next two photos.)

The surf shack roof below was made using the same process as the roof pieces above.

I begin assembling my surf shack. You can find an excellent video showing how to assemble the village dwelling by Tim Holtz himself, here.

You can see my surf shack taking shape as I add the main roof.

Here, I'm adding the windows that come with the Village Surf Shack die set. I cut them from one of the Core' dinations Kraft Core Nostalgic Cardstock sheets.

The village dwelling comes with a single door in case you want to create a unique door for your dwelling. I cut this piece twice and inked them both with Ground Espresso Distress Ink. I poked a hole for the door handle with a Tonic Craft Pick. (Be careful! DO NOT pierce your door on your craft mat, use a soft piercing mat or mouse pad.)

I put a Tim Holtz Mini Fastner Brad through the hole to create a door handle. 

I adhered another door to the back of the door with the door handle so when the door is open you can't see the brad on the other side of the door.

I live in Arizona and am surrounded by palm trees. I wanted mine to have dimension and character so I came up with a way to make them look a little more realistic. To do this, cut out six of the palm trees from the Tim Holtz Village Surf Shack die set. I cut mine out of manila paper or you can use a file folder if you have one on hand.

Take one palm tree in your hand and tear off part of the trunk near the bottom of the base. For the second palm tree, tear off the trunk a little higher up the trunk and continue to do this with three more palm tree trunks. Reserve one palm tree intact because this will serve as your base.

Cut off the palm fronds away from the trunk of one of the torn palm tree trunks as this will serve to add more leaves to your palm tree giving it more dimension. Ink the palm tree trunks with Vintage Photo Distress Ink paying special attention to the torn area. Ink the torn area a little extra so you can almost see a line at the top.

Ink the outer palm fronds with Peeled Paint Distress Ink using the Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool.

Ink the inside of the palm fronds with Forest Moss Distress Ink.

Now it's time to assemble your palm tree. Adhere the trunks together beginning with the shortest trunk working your way up to the tallest trunk.

Here you can see I'm continuing to build up my palm tree trunk.

Here, is the finished palm tree trunk.

Adhere the sectioned palm tree trunk over the complete unaltered palm tree trunk.

To adhere the second set of palm fronds, I placed a drop of Ranger Multi Matte Medium in the center of the bottom set of palm fronds and adhered that to the main palm tree.

Here is my completed palm tree. Isn't it adorable!!

To make the sand, I purchased some white sand at the dollar store which I keep in a container. This sand can be colored wonderfully using Adirondack Alcohol Inks. I placed some sand in a baggie and added about 10 drops of Latte Adirondack Alcohol Ink. I closed the baggie leaving air in the bag and tossed the bag around so the sand would mix with the alcohol ink.

My surf shack needed a larger base than the single size base that comes with the die set so I created four of them and taped them together to create a larger base. I cut the bases out of manila paper and added light and dark specks to the base using the specks stamp from the Tim Holtz Cracks & Specks Stamp Set. This created the look of sand on my bases.

Here, you can see one of the bases stamped to look like sand. I used Potting Soil and Tree Branch Archival Ink. (Tree Branch Archival Ink has been discontinued but you can use another lighter shade of brown for this effect.)

Here again is my completed surf shack. I can't tell you how much I love it! It is so special to me and will have a prominent place in my craft room to remind me of the wonderful summer fun I had in Cayucos sunnin' and surfin'.

That's me with my beginner's surf board. 

My five beautiful kids spending an afternoon boogie boarding.

I hoped you enjoyed seeing the process I used to create my Surf Shack representing Summer Fun. Please join us in all the fun and add your project to Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge Blog for your chance to win a $50 gift voucher to their amazing store.

For more inspiration, tips and tricks for all types of papercraft creations, follow Simon Says Stamp on:

          

You can find all the following supplies I used to create this project at Simon Says Stamp:

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