Watercolor Stamping

Deb with you today. There are so many possibilities when it comes to making the most of our rubber stamps that it just boggles the mind. I recently came across the watercolor stamping technique, and thought it would make a good topic for this week's Eureka and QKR Technique and Tutorial post. This project features QKR's Rose stamp. Besides a stamp, all you need is:

• Watercolor paper - I prefer a smooth finish to watercolor paper that I intend to stamp on. Some papers have a noticeable grain, and it makes it more difficult to get a good imprint
• Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap and, if you have them, Re-inkers in Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Bundled Sage and Faded Jeans. If you don't have the re-inkers, just use your stamp pads.
• Water brush or fine paint brush
• Small Palette or a stamping acrylic block

Here's how it comes together:

Stamp your image with Distress Ink's Frayed Burlap.

Immediately after stamping, begin going over your lines with a damp brush. You can see (above) where I started going over the lines in the top, left corner. Squeeze your waterbrush to get the water flowing, or dip your paint brush in some water. Blot on paper towel because you don't want too much water on your image. Then allow your image to dry, or speed it along with a heat gun.

Put very small drops of re-inker in your pallet compartments. Dip just the very tip of your brush in re-inker.

Begin adding color to your image by going over an area with your lightest color, and then adding a bit of the darker color where it would be appropriate to have deeper color or shade. If you get too much color or too much water in an area, just blot it with a tissue. Don't worry if you go over the lines - that just adds to the watercolor look.

Float a little bit of Faded Jeans around the flower. Be very careful here - Faded Jeans is a pretty strong color - you might want to blot your brush on paper towel before applying to the watercolor paper. Encourage the ink to move to the outsides of the paper, away from the image, with your wet brush. You can see the completed look at the top of this post.

Here's a card I made with my rose. I'm not really happy with the completed project. I love the card design, and I love the rose, but somehow the two don't seem to belong together. Does anyone have any advice for what I might do next time? Maybe use a beige/brown or green tone rather than the blue around the flower?

And that's it for this time. Do give this a try - I think you'll love it too! And please come visit my personal blog when you have looked all around the Eureka blog.

Even More Bodacious Backgrounds

It's that time of the week when the Eureka Stamps and QKR Stampede feature Technique and Tutorial Posts. Deb here with another look at what you can do with the fabulous Background Stamps available at Eureka.

For these projects, I chose 32101 Abstract Flower and 58401 Fern as my background stamps. I also used a phrase from the 46002 Best Wishes Werdz set and QKR's 17505 Rose.

As you might have guessed, this card uses the Fern Background and the Rose image. I stamped the background on some green SU cardstock with Distress Ink's Forest Moss. I trimmed to the stamping and mounted that panel on a darker green cardstock. I colored a white ribbon with Copics and tied it around the panel. I think that made a great background contrast for the flower.

I stamped the Rose on X-Press It Blending Card with Memento Rich Cocoa and colored it with Copics. Then it was cut with Spellbinder's Beaded Ovals and sponged with the Distress Ink. I then mounted this onto an oval cut with Spellbinders from the dark green.

All layers were mounted to my 5 3/4 inch card base. Next I added dots of liquid pearls around the rose and along the right side of the card. The design seemed to want more, so I added a small design under the background panel.

And now for the second half of today's presentation.....

Who says you have to use stamps in the way they were designed? This stamp is the Abstract Flower. But, when I looked at it from the side, I saw a bird. And who says it has to be a background? I thought it made a nice focal image. What do you think?





Anyway, the bird/flower was inked up with VersaMark, stamped on watercolor paper cut larger than I needed, and then heat embossed with silver powder. I then sponged Distress Ink in Broken China, Seedless Preserves, Peacock Feathers, and Evergreen Bough. After sponging, I spritzed the paper with a bit of water to start the magic of the Distress Inks, and let it dry.

Finishing the card was simple. I trimmed my image and mounted it on magenta card, mounted that to a piece of gray card and added a strip of ribbon. That was all adhered to a black card base cut at 5 x 7 inches. I then cut a Spellbinders Fancy Framed Tags 2 from the magenta. The Werdz greeting was stamped with VersaMark on a scrap piece of the colored water paper. Dots of liquid pearls complete the look.

That's it for me today. Remember to scope out everything there is to see on the Eureka Stamps Blog. Last week's Tutorial by Sara on Digital Coloring images with PhotoShop Elements was a doozy. And, as always, I hope you'll visit my personal blog for even more ideas I Love It.