Let's Watercolor, but without the Brushes

Hi everyone.  Its Katie here and I'd like to welcome you to another fabulous Friday!  Where is the time going? And where is my summer?? The Pacific Northwest has been chilly and wet of late.  And talking about water....I've got a technique to share with you that I love.  If you'd like the look of watercolor without all the painting here you go :)

This is a simple technique and this is all you need:

• A mini mister
• Tombow Markers
• Ink Pad
• Stamps
• Designer Paper
• Cardstock

One of the best things I like about this technique is that you don't have to be so picky and precise.  I started out with a little Tulip Stamp that can be yours on your next shopping visit for only $1.00.  I also used 2 Tombow Markers... Lori has these available in both color sets and individually.

Just color up your sections of your stamp.  Remember that with your lighter inks and markers, it will barely show on your stamp, but its there.

Now you take a mini spritzer... which by the way are awesome to have on hand.  They spray very nicely and don't take up much space at all.  You get 3 in a package too.  Its good to play around and test your image with different amounts of water sprayed onto your stamp.

Then its just a matter of stamping you your cardstock.  Even though you are using water, you don't need watercolor paper.  All you need is regular carstock and you'll be fine.  Your image will also puff up your paper just a tad (not wrinkle) and actually leave a neat texture to the touch.

You've got a couple of choices here.

• Color, Spritz, Stamp --- repeat this cycle
• Color, Spritz, Stamp, Spritz again, and then Stamp ---repeat the cycle

All depends on the look you like.

Here's my card where I used my strip of "watercolor" stamped tulips.  I paired it with the paper from the Basic Grey (6x6) Porcelain Collection.  This paper has lots of designs that totally play off the watercolor look.  And another note here... Lori just added 12x12 packs of Basic Grey paper at the store... I find that the 12x12 is just as usable for cards as it is for scrapbooking.

The ribbon you can find HERE and the sentiment is from a set called Formal Sentiments.

Here is a sample of of some background paper that I created using Soil of Prayer.  Even though this stamp is much larger its still super easy and fast to color.  I colored the entire image with the pink marker and then just dabbed the areas with the green marker. 

 

Close up:

I have one more simple technique that you can use with your ink pad.  The only difference is that you ink up your stamp like normal on the ink pad *** the only limitation with this is that you are really limited to one color *** which is why the markers are nice to have.  Then just spritz with water.  The more water you have on the stamp the more "watered" and less defined your image will be. 

 

 

Here's a side by side example of a plain stamped image and a "watercolor" stamped image.

 

And here is a card that I made using this image.  Do you recognize the background?  Its one of the examples I made for Tuesday's tutorial... yeah love the fact that I could use it so quickly.  I did use a waterbrush and my ink from my pad and splattered onto my image.

I used a circle nestability and the small inverted circle nestability, Old Wagon Stamp Set, a small hole punch, jute string, double ended tags, and some eyelets.

Thanks as always for stopping by and spending your time here at Clearly iStamp.  I wish you a great Friday and weekend.

This is Katie signing off for Clearly iStamp.

Comments

[Diana Crick]

Fabulous project Katie. I was wondering if you could contact me at ladydian@shaw.ca.
Diana Crick

[Nancy Grant]

I've seen this technique before but I don't remember it looking this good! Awesome tutorial Katie!!!
:-)

[Brenda]

Thanks! This looks easy and gives the image a whole different look!

[SMK]

wow, i really like that!! the wagon is particularly stunning! thanks for the tips :)

[Candy Fosta]

Very cool technique -- love the softness it produces. The wagon card is especially great with all the stitching.