Make It Monday | How to create a fun watercolour background for your cards

StampinByHannah Make It Monday How to create a fun watercolour background for your cards

A few weeks ago I was playing around with the Little Twinkle Stamp set (read: should have been making samples for my Twinkle Twinkle Suite Share!) and shared a picture of what I was working on over on Instagram. One of my lovely followers asked how I created the watercolour background… so, here is the tutorial!

I’m a little bit in love with this colour combination; Blueberry Bushel, Coastal Cabana and Gray Granite. So pretty, and a great way to make a pretty yet masculine card…. although I think if I was to make this again I might hit it with a bit of Wink of Stella for some sparkle too!

There isn’t really any trick to creating this type of background, other than patience! There are two layers of watercolour on this card, plus some over stamping. You can see all the details in the video tutorial…

Stampin’ Up! inks are water-based, which allows you to use the same inks that you stamp with to create fun watercolour backgrounds like this one! To use your inks for watercolour, just squeeze the ink pad before you open it to put in onto the “lid”… this is a little tricky on the new style ink pads, and so you might choose to use a drop of a re-inker onto a clear block instead.

Video Tutorial…

Once the first layer of watercolour is laid down, leave it! Let it dry naturally for less warping, or hit it with your heat tool for speed. The second layer is where you create those fabulous harsh lines and blend the colours. Then, once its all dry, you can add some stamping! Here I’ve added stamping using the Stampin’ Up! Craft White Ink… this ink is a pigment rather than being water-based like the rest of the Stampin’ Up! inks. This allows you to get a really crisp white image, but it does take a little longer to dry.

The sentiment is stamped last, although the Blueberry Bushel in has been resisted by the White Pigment for a further fun watercolour effect.

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Hannah McCurley