Rain, rain, go away

Will it just please stop raining? The weather has been so gloomy lately that I thought I'd make some summery cards but it's so dark today that I can't get a decent picture. 

I coloured a set of these images from Summer By the Sea using the wet on wet watercolouring technique. I'm not a big embosser but, when combined with embossing, wet on wet is really easy so I made an exception. Apologies to those who know all this but I want to make this blog accessible to everyone, so just skip the techniques if you're not interested:

Embossing

You can emboss with the Versamark pad and coloured embossing powder (Stampin' Up! sells black, white, silver and clear). Or you can use the Versamark pad, a coloured ink pad and clear powder. This is what I did, using my black ink pad as I didn't have any black embossing powder:

1. Ink your stamp with Versamark. 

2. Immediately ink your stamp with a colour. 

3. Immediately stamp on your cardstock. 

4. Sprinkle with powder and shake off the excess. You can relax now - the rush is over.

5. Set the powder with a Heat Tool (p82). 

If you have the correct coloured powder, you just stamp with Versamark, sprinkle, shake off excess and heat. 

Wet on wet watercolouring

This is a fun technique that is really easy. It works best with embossed images, which stop the ink from going over the lines. 

You can use watercolour paints, watercolour pencils, reinkers or ink pads. I used ink pads - if you squeeze a closed Stampin' Up! ink pad hard with your thumbs in the middle of the lid, when you open the pad there is a pool of ink on the underside of the lid. You can use this for painting - but do make sure to dry it fully before closing the lid.

Take your piece of cardstock with the embossed image and completely soak it with water. Using a paint brush, apply spots of colour where required. They will run, they may even go over the lines a little, depending on your image, but it will be a subtle effect. For brighter colours, add more ink. For paler colours, add more water and spread the ink around a little. 

I coloured this image with Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip and Mellow Moss. To make the colour for the girl's skin, I mixed a little Ruby Red with So Saffron. Blush Blossom is roughly the same colour but I don't have that ink pad. 

Allow to dry. Mine dried near the fire in about an hour... although you could speed it up with the heat gun if required. They were quite wrinkly so I left them under a couple of heavy books overnight. If you still have wrinkles, make sure you don't skimp on the adhesive. 

Stamps: Summer by the Sea (p48)

Cardstock: Mellow Moss, Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red, Whisper White

Ink: Versamark (p82), Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip, Mellow Moss, So Saffron, Basic Black

Accessories: Brads - Rich Regals (p85), Gingham Ribbon - Mellow Moss (p86), Stampin' Emboss Powder - clear (p82)

All products by Stampin' Up! Please email me to request a catalogue, or see right for a link to the online version.