Designs by Ryn Sponsor Spotlight No.2

Candice here!.....Oh my, I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled I am to present the sponsor spotlight this month for....

I had been dreaming about the line of stamps that I am going to be featuring today for eons and so when I was presented with the opportunity to shine a light on them I grabbed that handle faster than you can think to turn it.

Since the theme of challenge this month is: “April Showers bring May Flowers”, it was only natural that the “Water Effects 1” line of design is the collection that I have chosen to splash around with.

If you have never come across this collection, you will be amazed at how intricate 

the detail and deep etch of these droplet effects are

They yield a 3D quality of such realistic clarity that you will be squinting to see if there really is water dripping onto the project.


I created a collection of 6 graphic designs – each design showcases a water effect in a different context with minor tweaks to alter the feel of the water effect. I’m going to show you can recreate each of these designs below with a brief explanation of the technique tweaks applied on each design.

Rainy Day Leaves


Use a piece of Patterned Wood grain paper or stamp a woodgrain pattern on a piece of cardstock. To create the plank or shingle effect fold the paper into strips and ink on the mountain fold join.




Use the “Water Droplets” stamp and stamp the pattern all over the “planks”.


Make a translucent white wash by swiping white Picket Fence Distress Stain on your craft mat and misting it with clean water. Use a small detailing brush to pick up some of white wash and paint in the clear parts of the droplet. Ideally the more opaque white should be at the heaviest tension of the drop. You may apply “Glossy Accents” to some of the drops just to give it some extra texture.

Die-cut Maple Leaves from textured handmade paper. Ink the edges to create shading. Use a Viva Decor Transparent Paper Pen to create the dimensional drops on the leaves.




A Perfect Gem

How fabulous is it that the same “Water Droplets” Stamp also created this gem texture.

Stamp a strip of gems on the right hand side of a piece of Ranger Stamping cardstock that you have colourwashed in neutral sandy tones. On this card Antique Linen, Bundled Sage, Tea Dye and Frayed Burlap.

Colour in the “Water Droplets” in rich, intense jewel tones with Distress Markers. Make it as dark as the cardstock will absorb.

Now you want to do the opposite of what you did with the white-wash. Dip a Fine detail brush in water and washout some of the bottoms of the drops (where the tension is the heaviest). Leave it darker at top. Washout the reflection highlight at the top of the drop as well.

Write or stamp a sentiment on some scraps of Balsa wood or chipboard. Using the “Sideways Droplets”, mask off how much you want and stamp the drops onto the balsa wood. Use a permanent marker to colour in the drop. Add a generous amount of “Glossy Accents” to the drops to make it dimensional.

Use a Viva Decor Translucent Paper pen to create the “gems” on a craft mat. Colour the underside of each gem with a permanent Marker. Glue in place with “Glossy Accents”.

Flights of Fancy


Create the whimsical bubbles on this design by using the “Rising bubbles” Stamp from the “Water Effects 1” Collection.
Colour inside the bubbles, blending as much as you wish with Distress markers.
To get the bubbles to really pop up – apply a generous layer of Glossy Accents to each bubble.

 The awesome Ukiyo-e like wave texture in the background was created with another Designs By Ryn (“Sea Bubbles”) stamp.

Add a strip of vellum over the top right of the background piece. Use a white permanent marker to draw in cloud shapes and wind swirls on the reverse side of the vellum. Write in a sentiment on the “cloud”.Die-cut Feathers and individually colour those. You may want to add some more texture by using a 0.7 black gel pen to accentuate the grain of the feathers.



Pretty Little Things

Begin by creating your background by first stamping your sideways droplets offset on the right hand corner in Archival Ink.



Swipe Ripe Persimmon, Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn and Salty Ocean Distress Ink directly onto the cardstock and blend together with an overswipe of Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink. Spritz a butterfly stamp with clean water and create artsy water stains by stamping it on the Distress Ink saturated background.

To create the effect of realistic 3D clear droplets, Dip a bullet nibbed Fantastix colouring tool in clean water and wash out the inside of each bubble. 

This will leave a washed out hint of colour that's lighter than what is around it. To really make it shiny – take a white gel pen and add a highlight to the reflection at the top of the bubble.

Add Ribbon, Baker’s Twine and butterfly die-cuts to embellish. Add wire forms to create more interest.

Dance in the Rain


This was done in pretty much the same way as the technique walk-through of the previous one so I am not going to make you read the same instructions again. 

The bits to remark on though are the crying eye effect. You start by inking the small Hanging Droplets stamp.

Choose the size teardrop you want and mask off the rest. Stamp the teardrop. This makes it easier to position the eye in the appropriate place. 



You could also have a tear rolling out the corner of the eye. It’s up to you to cry where you you like! Mask off the centre or the whites of the eye and saturate your background with loads of psychedelic hippy colours.

 Use a retro circles stamp spritzed with water to lift some of the ink off.

Stamp the rest with the Large Hanging Droplets over the inked background in Archival Ink. Now you can washout the inside of the drops and highlight the reflection at the top of the drops with white ink or a white gel pen. Stamp or write your sentiment where you want it.


Find your Light Shaker

This adorable window shaker card would have been effective and gorgeous as is with the Bokeh Effect outside the window and all. But what really brought it to life was the HANGING DROPLETS on the window panes right?

This one was a bit more technical than the rest. So here is a little step-by-step to help you find your light shaker too!

To create the rainy window panes you are going to need a piece of acetate, Stazon Black Ink and a white permanent marker (I used a Centropen Marker).

Stamp the Large “Hanging Droplets” all over a piece of acetate with Stazon Permanent Black ink.

When it dries, use a white permanent marker to colour in the drops on the reverse side of the acetate.

Creating the Bokeh Background involves inking up a piece of glossy cardstock.

Die cut circles in different sizes and lay them down in the Light Pattern that you want so that the circles create a mask.

Use Black Soot Distress Ink to ink up the whole background. Remove the the Mask and you have a gorgeous light pattern. Lightly mist with Water to create speckles.

Wash some of the colour out in the Bokeh Circles if you want a more glowing light pattern.

Add your other sparkles and sequins and put together your shaker card.

Add all the other embellishments to the window frame and stencil a brick texture for the background.


I wrote in a sentiment but you can stamp one in if you don’t trust your handwriting.

And there it is.......


Aren't these stamps just the darn awesomest? It was all kinds of fun creating these different effects to make the most of this collection and I am already bursting with even more new ideas I have for them, but I will have to stop here for now.


I hope that you will "drop" by and play along with Shari's challenge this month since DESIGNS BY RYN is sponsoring some magnificent prizes and the Water Effects Collection that I used to create these designs are included in the prize loot.


I am excited to see what you come up with!


xXxx Candice the Tincan Crafter xXxx