Hello and dare I quietly say "Happy Spring" (for those of you with snow still on the ground)! With the time change this weekend and Spring Breaks starting around the country, Spring should be on the way soon, so I'm hurrying it along a little today with Julie's pretty new Essentials by Ellen Bold Blooms stamp set (all bold products are linked below in the supply section):
I did an emboss resist technique on this card, using Copic Various Ink Refills to "watercolor" the flowers and leaves. Here's how:
1. Stamp the blooms and leaves with Versamark ink onto watercolor paper trimmed to 4" wide x 5.50" tall, allowing for placement of sentiment. Heat emboss the stamped images with white embossing powder.
2. Put RV63 and RV66 Copic Various Ink Refills into palette wells and fill a water brush with Copic Colorless Blender Solution. Use the water brush to pick up the lighter RV63 color and loosely color over the blooms. Coloring outside the lines adds to the watercolor effect! Next, pick up the darker RV66 color and add some shading to the blooms. The Copic Various Ink will also tint the white embossing powder, but no worries -- we'll take care of that in a bit! Alternately, you could try using clear embossing powder and the Various Ink may not show up as much on it.
3. Add the YG61 Various Ink to the palette and give the leaves a base coat.
4. Next, shade the leaves with the darker YG63 ink.
5. Place a little Copic Colorless Blender Solution onto a tissue or paper towel and gently/quickly swipe the Various Ink colors off the white embossed images. I say quickly because if you leave the tissue on your watercolored images too long, it may cause your colors to "bleach out" too much or run. If that happens, just add some more Copic color!
6. Stamp the pretty Fancy Thanks sentiment and dots from Bold Blooms with Jet Black Arichival ink. I had no problem using this black ink with the Copic Various Ink but if you want to be sure your black ink doesn't react to the Copic inks (or may think you will add more Copic Various Ink to the images later), use Copic-friendly Memento Tuxedo Black.
To finish the card, I stamped a piece of Bazzill Licorice Twist cardstock with the dots and white heat embossed them. The 3/4-inch strip was placed on the left side of a top folded Neenah 110 lb. Solar White card base.
The stamped watercolor panel was popped up with Copic 1/2-inch X-Press It Foam Tape and just like that, it's done! I adore this gorgeous script thanks!
I hope Spring is right around the corner for you, but if it is taking its sweet time, you can always spend the weekend Copic "water" coloring! ~ Sharon
