Stamping with Dee

For my last post, I included pictures made by Dee Gruenig. For this post, I am including a card I made using her stamps. I thought it would be a nice contrast to present two different stamping styles. I also thought it would be nice to continue my series of out of focus pictures. I think you can still get the idea.

They say the first step in a 12-step program is to admit you have a problem. So, here goes. My name is Laura, and I am a Twinkling H20 addict. Whew, that felt good to get off my chest. I may have to make another statement about Copic Markers, but one addiction at a time.

Whenever I want to have a quick watercolor card, I pull out my Twinks. I love the shimmer you get with these paints. I find it really hard to get a good picture of the metallic sheen, but I think my second picture of the card is not bad. I normally don't like to take a picture of a card from above because it looks distorted to me. However, that was the only way I could see the metallic sheen.

My advice when applying Twinkling H20's directly to stamps is to apply a thick layer of paint to the image. It is also important to make sure you have a well used stamp so that the paint doesn't roll right off the edge. New stamps tend to have a protective coating on them that makes them slick and hard to paint. My three wildflowers stamp was new so I lightly sanded it with very fine sandpaper which roughed up the stamp enough so that the paint would adhere. Don't worry though! Sanding it won't ruin your stamp (if you use a very fine paper).

I inked the flowers with light blue paint, added dark blue paint to the centers of the flowers, and colored the leaves with green paint. I spritzed the stamp twice (don't over-wet the image) and stamped it onto cream paper. I spritzed it two more times and stamped it to the right side of the card and repeated the process for the left side of the card. That's right, I got three stampings out of painting my stamp only one time!

To finish the card, I added more water to my green paint so that it was runny and then painted some grass free-hand along the bottom of the card. If you haven't tried Twinks before, I highly recommend them. Be careful though....they are addictive!