I thought I'd share how I have created the backgrounds for my fairy cards.
I used three colours of distress oxide ink pads and  two bottles of  Windsor and Newton liquid water paints or    Brusho crystals dissolved  in  little water.  These are optional.

I started  by squishing the ink pads onto a baking sheet. I then dotted in a few drops of Windsor and Newton liquid water colours.

 I love these paints they have a pipette  in the lid so  it;s really easy to just add a drop or two exactly where you want it.

 I spritzed  the inks on the baking sheet with water.

Then I lightly spritzed the card stock. 
If you get the card too wet just wipe off the excess water with kitchen roll.





Lay the damp card stock onto the wet inks and lightly press the card down .
Lift the card and allow the excess to run off  onto an area of the baking sheet away from the remaining ink to prevent the excess mixing with the remaining ink and becoming a muddy mix.



Allow the card to dry completely. 
Depending on how much ink is left on the baking sheet it is possible to colour  a  second sheet,  but the second sheet will be paler. 

 You will need to clean off the baking sheet after colouring the second  piece of card as the mix will be too murky  to use.

I like to mix up lots of batches using different colours and colour lots of pieces of cards ready for stamping.

Once the card stock was completely dry I sprayed some clean water into my hand and flicked the water over the card stock. I allowed the water to sit on the card  for a for about 30 second and then blotted the water  off with kitchen roll. The water lifts off the colour leaving 

 an interesting effect.
The longer you leave the water to sit the more colour it lifts off.

Leave to card to dry before you stamp.

The next step was to  cut a circular mask for the sun/ moon.  I used a two glue pen on the back of the mask and allowed the glue to dry before sticking it to my coloured card.



Using a sponge dauber with a tiny amount of lilac ink,  I sponged around the edge of the mask to create a sun.

I also sponged around the edges of the card and drew in  a couple of  and  lines  which will be  my horizon and contour lines.

The sun is revealed once the mask is removed.



It look pretty cool for such a simple technique.


The next step is work out your composition. 
Be prepared to make last minute changes .  
I have managed to get ink smudges on my card stock that I didn't  plan or want.

The only way to salvage my work was to stamp over the smudge to conceal it. Sometimes this has meant doing quite a lot more stamping than  I had planned.





 I wanted to add some trees in the background. using the Stamparatus, I positioned the trees over the sun on the my card and picked up the stamp with the plate of the stamparutus. I inked up the tree stamp in the same lilac ink as I used on the sun and stamped the trees. 












I decided not to use the  trees on my second piece. So I stamped willow branches hanging down and some wild flowers on each side in lilac with the hope that when I stamp them again in black they will get pushed back into the distance.

 Knowing the fairy was going to need stamping at least twice,   I used the  stamparatus to enable me to repeat stamp  the Fairy.                                                                                                                                                                          


Now my Focal point   is stamped I can now stamp the foliage around her.                                                                                                                                                     

Some of the foliage I stamped in lilac  then stamped it all again in black Versafine.

Once the ink was dry I applied some two way glue using the fine pen and then applied glitter.
All that's  left to do is trim  it to size and layer it  before adhering it to the front of a card.