As though it is rising out of the water along the shore of a serene lake, the nearby stamped and painted box by artist Cheryl McVeigh is a treasure.

Highlighted with a medley of metallic and luminescent paints and embossing powders in her favorite colors — aquamarine and copper — McVeigh’s hexagonal box, which features images from Stamp Zia, shows what a special technique can do: The radiant colors were "spounced" onto the inexpensive wooden box.

"‘Spounce’ is my definition of the action of using a cosmetic sponge to bounce up and down onto the surface being painted," McVeigh explains. "The action is like a pogo stick."

She simply and firmly dabbed the sponge repeatedly onto the surface, with the sponge "actually making a sucking noise when it was removed from the surface," McVeigh continues. "This is an amazing technique because the sponge is so dense that it holds lots of paint, so you hardly use any paint at all, but at the same time, the denseness makes a beautifully smooth painted surface. There are no paintbrush lines anywhere using this method."

A baker’s dozen paints, inks and other surface treatments eventually saw their way onto The Blue Heron, and McVeigh welcomes the opportunity to share the awe-inspiring results with readers everywhere. Learn how she did it, and how you can master a new technique or two, in this exemplary project in the latest issue of RubberStampMadness.