Watercolor Background

I usually don't think of using watercolors on Christmas cards, do you? I made some cards this week for Christmas, challenging myself to incorporate watercolors. Here is one card using Splitcoast sketch SC255:


I made a large piece of watercolor background, cut a bit of it off and then stamped the image with a deep color of ink. Here is the background paper that I did:



Making a pretty background paper like this is really very easy. You will need watercolor paper, a brush, and either water-based paints or dye ink pads.


For my piece I used the dye ink pads. If you haven't watercolored with these before, here's how you do it. Take your closed stamp pad and and press the lid down onto the pad:


When you open the lid, you will see some ink on the lid:


Take your brush and a little water and mix into the ink on the lid:


To make my background, you just take a wet piece of watercolor paper and paint stripes of different colors across, blending where they meet. Let the paper dry thoroughly before stamping on it. You can heat set if you wish. Go ahead and stamp with dye ink if your paper is completely dry.

Here is another card that I made with the blue portion of my background paper:



I made a third card with Blingz paint instead of dye ink. You can see it on the Cottage Studio blog HERE.

Oh, and by the way, there is a great sale over at Clear Artistic Stamps. Stamp sets that are usually $10.95 are on special for $6.49. What a deal!