Two fun watercolouring techniques using Dragonfly Garden

 

Do you like creating your own watercoloured backgrounds for your Stampin' Up!® cards? It's one of my favourite things to do and I have some fall-back techniques I return to, time after time.

I used two of these techniques to make some cards using the Dragonfly Garden stamp set recently.

Masked Seaside Notions seashells on clear block background

Stamping, masking, clear block stamping... this is a fun technique card which is easy to create and looks pretty effective (in my opinion).

Clear block stamping is a really fun technique; just ink up your block (you can use ink pads or water-based markers), then spritz with water before pressing onto your paper. Bizarrely, despite this being a faux watercolour technique, it works best with Whisper White cardstock rather than watercolour paper.

The shells are masked using sticky notes so that the images don't overlap. The secret here is to work from the front to the back, so you stamp the large shell first, mask it, then stamp the images 'behind' it. Another top tip is to retain your masks - keep them in the stamp box for future use, as this will save you time when you revisit the technique.