No, I didn't mask them out, They were there originally. I had a bit of a mishap on the lower half of the image after I had stamped and coloured it.
I was pleased with my colouring on this one, so I was really annoyed with myself for messing it up with ink smudges.
Salvaging my work wasn't as bigger issue as I thought it might be. I simply cut out all the of the frozen river, then I stuck what was left on a new, longer piece of card.
Extending the river meant the new longer image now covers almost all of my card front, So I don't need to add background papers.