Bauble Beauty – video

I have mentioned more than once my ‘brushstroke binge’ on this year’s Christmas cards. The Penny Black ‘bauble beauty‘ stamp was one I used several times and decided to make a video of my simple dye-ink watercolour technique. Keep in mind I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper; the inks don’t react the same way on regular cardstock.

Brushstroke stamps are so called because they appear to be stamps made from painted images. I often use dye inks when stamping them so I can add some water to the stamping and get a watercolour look. On the cards featured here I used a range of different inks but also vary the amount of water added on the stamp and at the blending stage. The card below features only one ink for the foliage, the magical northern pine memento ink. All the rest of the cards were stamped with the blue and green distress inks.

You can see on the two cards below I was more generous with water on the left hand card blending the ink over the whole tree shape. On the right hand card I left patchy areas unblended which kept the green inks more separate and made the tree slightly see through.

I painted pearlescent baubles on all the trees after the ink had dried. As the video shows some of the baubles disappeared at the stamping stage when the diluted ink spread over most of the tree shape. In those cases I filled the baubles I could see and added pearlescent circles on top of the blended tree where I thought more baubles should go.

The finishing touches on all the cards included die-cutting then embossing with the retired stampin up ‘subtle’ embossing folder. It creates a nice linen/canvas look; maybe there are other folders available that do a similar thing. I chose small sentiments from Penny Black sets, some stamped directly on the watercolour panel; others on little die-cut strips.

Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox & Scrap’n’Stamp.