Inks, Five Ways Day 3

Did you know you can watercolor with your ink pads?  I've been making cards for over eleven years now and I didn't even know I could do that for about half the time!

I've always used my Distress Inks when water coloring on cards (and traditional watercolors) because they're specifically formulated to work with water. Don't get me wrong, Distress Inks are wonderful to work with but not everyone can afford to have every ink available. And there's a lot of them!

This card took me fifteen minutes tops! I felt so accomplished because I kid you not, I spend at least forty five minutes to an hour on every card I make. This would be a great card to mass produce (think Christmas) with any set of stamps.

I used Stampin' Up!'s Beautiful You stamp set for this card. I had yet to use this set from last years catalog. I'm so happy they decided to continue to carry it this year. It's a beautiful set with great sentiments. I also used several Stampin' Up! inks for my watercolor. Instead of listing them all out, I took a picture here:

When water coloring always use watercolor paper. Card stock can't hold all the water and will become warped and pill if overworked. Stampin' Up! does sell watercolor card stock packs but to be honest, I don't buy it. I highly recommend Canson XL watercolor paper. It's very inexpensive when regular priced but think big box store coupons! Yep, that's when I buy it, such a great deal and it's thick enough for card bases. I used it for the card base on this card.

Really, all you need to do to make this card is stamp out your images in archival black ink (it's waterproof) then add your color, with water of course! I took each ink pad and squeezed the top to the bottom before opening them to make my pallet. Then I dipped a wet brush into each color and applied it to my card front.

After the inks dried (I helped a bit with my heat gun)  I added some water to my black ink and used my brush to flick the black ink onto my card front to make a fun splatter. I love how the card turned out and how easy it was. I'm confident you can do this too and hope you'll give it a try!

Happy stamping my friends! Thanks for joining me and I'll see you tomorrow with another way to use your inks!

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