Technique Time!

     My favorite thing about joining Stampin Up four years ago, has been all of the new techniques I have learned. And not just from Stampin up, but from conventions, classes, fellow crafters, and everyone's favorite...Pinterest! Starting out, I could stamp and cut paper and thats about it! 

     

     My recent favorite techniques are anything involving watercoloring. It's SO easy and they make such a big impact on my work. I love stamping outlines with Staz On and coloring them with inks and an aqua brush. I can stamp on canvas and add water to make little pieces of art. I have also been experimenting with different background techniques, and thats what I wanted to show off today.

     By no means is this a new technique, but I FINALLY sat down to play with it this morning, and this is the result! The coolest thing is that each piece is very different..

     I stamped my image on watercolor paper with black Staz On ink. After it was nice and dry, I added my color. I used a large acrylic block, and colored right on it with my Stampin Write Markers. Once the ink was on the block, I used one of the little spritzers filled with water, and squirted right onto the block. From there, all you need to do is put your image face down on the block and mush it down. My little trick for everything I watercolor is to let it mostly air dry, then I put the pieces between the pages of a heavy book. That helps with the warping as the water dries.

     Another one I tried recently was squirting onto an inked stamp. All these techniques were on hold for a while because I didn't have a squirt bottle! I see regular bottles used all the time in tutorials, but I always felt like that was too big. So I got a set of spritzers from Stampin Up, and they seem much more manageable! Here was my project for directly sptritzing a stamp.

    I have made this set of cards before by daubering ink onto the stamp, but that is a little tedious! You have to dauber across the whole stamp with even pressure, and then you have to really press hard for the ink to stamp well. So I inked up the stamp with my Stampin Write Markers instead, and the squirted them with water before stamping the image onto paper. The result is similar to daubering....you still get the nice color blending....but with this technique, you get a softer "mushing" effect of some of the colors. You can really see it in the individual picture I put up. I love beng able to see the detail the daubering gives you, but this is so much faster. I am hoping to get a few of these made for the Etsy site!

     And if you love this butterfly and the colors I used, it all came from Stampin Up. Click on my Stampin Up link if you are interested in ordering....just choose Melinda Bream as your demonstrator. 

     If you haven't watercolored yet, do it!! It's easy, beautiful and very fun!