In a huff...

Hi friends of BRI!  Norine here with you today!  Weird blog post title, right?  Hang on, I'll get to that in a second.

So, I've been dying to use this Floral Background stamp from The Stamp Market for weeks now.  I gave it a test run back here, but I really wanted to make a project where it's beautiful design was the focus.  

I tried a few versions of this technique, first with Gelatos, then the Prima IOD water soluble oil pastels, to little success, and a bunch of wasted watercolor paper.  Coloring directly onto a stamp with  heavily pigmented crayons like those, and then spritzing water on the stamp and stamping onto watercolor paper, is a fun technique, but one that produces a very loose and watery style, and I wanted something more defined for this project.

So I switched to Strathmore Bristol smooth cardstock, and water-based pens.  Tombows, Distress markers, any kind of water-based marker will do.  

And here's where the huffy title comes from.  I colored each individual leaf and bloom with a color of marker, huffed on the stamp to re-moisten the ink, then stamped it onto the cardstock.  Let's take a moment here to give credit where credit is due.  All Hail the MISTI stamp positioner!!  Before it's invention, this project wouldn't have been at all easy, or even, dare I say, possible.  Color, huff, stamp, color, huff, stamp, color, huff, stamp.  Each and every leaf and bloom.  Where the ink transferred blotchily, I smoothed it out with a fine tipped water brush.  It's a very calming and contemplative process, and there's no rushing it.  But so very worth it!

I color/stamped the coral card first, onto white cardstock, but I thought I might like it better with some color in the background, so for the blue card I began by blending on some Distress Oxide ink - Faded Jeans.

The colors of Tombows used for the blue card are 533, 553, 603, 623, 673 (blues) 158, 228, 243 and 312 (greens).  For the coral colored card, I was just experimenting and I didn't keep track of the marker colors.  

Then, when I saw how pretty the blue card was with the inked background, I went back and inked over the whole card panel with Wild Honey Distress Oxide.  It doesn't seem to matter much whether you do that step first or last.  For this card I also wanted to try adding some additional definition with a scribbley random outline with the fine-tip end of coordinating colored markers.

To finish the cards up, I stamped the Pretty Pink Posh hummingbirds onto Strathmore Bristol smooth card stock and colored them with water-based markers and a water brush.  I fussy cut each one, (although there are dies for this set) then popped them up with foam tape over the stamped Happy Birthday banner (Lawn Fawn) and the die cut Hello sentiment (Pretty Pink Posh).  Finally some sequins and enamel dots to complete the cards.

I am in love with the results of this technique, combined with this gorgeous stamp and I'd definitely encourage you to give it a try!

Thanks for stopping by today!