Oh, Happy Day! - Faux Watercolor & Ink Smooshing

Hi, and welcome back! If you think this girl loves ice cream, you're right! I especially love anything that has pretty watercolor, faux colored or not, ice creams on it. These cards are so fun to create because you use several different techniques to create them.  I have a video below that will walk you through the process plus a written walk-through. Watching videos is not everyone's thing, I get it.

 Okay, let's walk through the process.

FAUX WATERCOLOR PREP

You can skip to 00:56 in the video for this step

You will need to Bristol smooth paper or watercolor paper, whatever you have on hand, place it in your stamping tool, position stamp.

Distress Inks in the colors: Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, any stamp set that has stable images will work and sentiments. 

Ink up the stamp with Spun Sugar Distress Ink, stamp directly to the Bristol smooth paper, ink same stamp with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink, only inking part of the stamp (see photo above), stamp directly over the Spun Sugar Distress Ink you just stamped, with a watercolor brush add water directly to the stamp, close the lid of the stamping tool allowing the inks to react with the water, once you lift the lid you will have a loose watercolor look. You can take the watercolor brush directly to the stamped image at this point to move the inks around, this step is optional. Continue the steps above until you have all images done.

                                                                     

Stamp sentiments using Versafine Onyx Black Ink. Set these aside to dry while you work on backgrounds.

 

BACKGROUND PREP

You can skip to 02:42 in the video for this step.

Watercolor Paper, several sheets of scrap papers to serve as shims, water, watercolor brush, Distress Inks in the colors: Picked Raspberry, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Squeezed Lemonade.

Lay down scrap paper for shims laying watercolor paper on top. You want to have enough shims so that when you close the lid of the stamping tool it makes direct contact with the watercolor paper and you're not putting too much pressure on the lid. Add water directly to paper with a watercolor brush.

TIP: You can spritz water directly to the lid of stamping tool but I prefer adding the water directly to paper to avoid saturated inks running all over the place. Completely personal preference. 

Smoosh distress inks on the inside of the lid and close allowing the ink and water time to react with each other. 

Lift the lid, wipe clean and continue adding inks until you are happy with the background paper.

You can air dry or use a heat gun to dry the backgrounds. I set them aside to dry while I clean up and prep my work area for die-cutting, dry embossing, sanding and assembling the cards.

TIP #2: Add Perfect Pearls to a mini mister, add water, close and shake to mix the pearls and water for shimmer spritz. Great way to get multiple uses out of the perfect pearls.

DIE-CUTTING, EMBOSSING, AND SANDING PREP

You can skip to 04:31 in the video for this step.

Hero Arts Rectangle Nesting Dies, any embossing folder will work, I used the Darice Argyle Embossing Folder, Sand Paper or Emory Board, Shimmer Spritz

Die-cut backgrounds using Hero Arts Rectangle Nesting Dies, then place in an embossing folder and crank through a die-cut machine.  

I'm using a piece of scrap sanding paper from my DIY Home Painting supplies but you can use an Emory board, sanding block, whatever you have on hand. Lightly sand the embossed background to reveal more of the pattern. Spritz with shimmer spritz. 

I wanted to show the shimmer from the shimmer spritz I made using the Perfect Pearls. 

One of the cards I did some random stamping with sentiments to create a background. 

Layer background onto 4.25"x5.5" top-fold #110 card bases using ATG Adhesive, add 3D mounting foam to the back of faux watercolor panels and center over backgrounds, add sequins using Glossy Accents.

As always, thank you for popping in. If you have any questions just leave them in the comments or you can email me at contact@lisamensing.com. 

Disclosure: I purchase all my products and by doing so I can keep my opinions real! I do not offer paid endorsements. I will never recommend a product that I would not buy again. I do participate in a few affiliate programs that allow me to earn a small commission when you purchase items through my links. This is at no extra charge to you. I love sharing through my blog post and videos and that small commission helps to offset the cost. And I'm so grateful for this.