Faux Watercolour Stamping

Hey, Terri here! Today I am sharing a Faux Watercolour stamping technique that you can use with any layered or silhouette stamps.

I start this technique by creating my own ink pads! There are several ways you can do this, you need something to act as the ink pad base (to carry the ink) I had some blank ink pads but here are some other ways you could achieve this: Stamping Foam, Make Up Sponges, Thick felt, Upholstry Foam, Dry Baby Wipes, Sponges. I find that the denser the material the better. You also need somethign to act as ink. You could use reinkers, liquid watercolour or mixed media sparys.

I opted to use reinkers from Altenew's Fresh Dye Ink range, I used colours from the Red Cosmos, Golden Sunset, Green Fields and Frosted Foliage. I added a few drops of the pink colours to my pad along with about 1tsp of liqiud glycerin, this helps the ink become sticky and adhere to the stamp better.

I used Altenew's A2 Watercolor Paper to stamp onto, it is almost smooth but has enough tooth to hold the ink giving a watercolour look. Using the first layer of the Dry Brush Poinsettia Stamp Set I added my home made ink and stamped 3 flowers, for the next layer I added some darker shades of red and a little yellow to the ink pad. I love how adding the inks in a random way to the pad gives you a unique effect and no two flowers are ever the same.

To add the leaves I created another pad using various shades of green, to stamp the leaves I made use of the Dry Brush Poinsettia Mask, this allowed me to cover the flowers and add leaves, giving the impression that they are tucked behind.

To add the centres of the flowers I used a round foam ink blending pad, I didn't want to create a large pad when the stamp was so tiny. This worked perfectly, I added a couple of drops of glycerin and then a little orange reinker. I prodded it a few times to help it soak into the pad first and then took the stamp to the pad. 

I added a stamped sentiment from the Dry Brush Poinsettia Stamp Set in the lower right corner and a strip of gold glitter card to the left. Finally I added a few gold pearls to the centre of the flowers.

Why not have alook through your craft stash this weekend and see if you can make your own ink pads too.