Falling for Fall

Today I swear I could feel a hint of autumn in the air. For the most part, August hasn't been too hot and humid here in Virginia. It is usually miserable this time of year. Nevertheless, I am anticipating fall. I think it is my favorite season.

Today's card uses two of the new images by Impression Obsession. One of my favorite techniques to use with a solid stamp is to paint it with Twinkling H20's, spritz it, and stamp it onto cardstock. I just love the sparkly result you get.

There are several steps when painting a stamp with H20's. First, you need to use a well used stamp or an image that you have scuffed up a bit with very fine sandpaper. The reason you do this is to get rid of any coating that might exist on the stamp. If you don't, the paint will roll right off of the stamp. The sandpaper won't hurt the stamp, and I think you will find that it will take ink better too. Next, wet the stamp with a damp paper towel and then paint it with several colors of Twinkling H20's. Make sure the paint is thick and pasty. If you don't, it will roll off of the stamp. Spritz your stamp a couple of times and then stamp it onto your cardstock. Then you have a decision to make. You can either spritz your image again without adding more paint to achieve a faded image, or you can reapply the paint and repeat the stamping process to achieve another dark image. There are pros and cons with both decisions. If you don't apply more paint, you probably can get several stampings out of one "inking" of the stamp. This makes for very fast cards! However, as you dilute the paint on your stamp, it won't be as sparkly. If you repaint your image after each stamping, the colors will have more shimmer. However, this takes a lot of time.

Here is a close up of one of the leaves. Notice how shiny the image is with Twinkling H20's. Also, notice that it is worth taking the time to apply several colors of paint to your stamp. The resulting image is much more interesting with a variety of colors. I almost always add a bit of gold paint when I am stamping fall images.


Post script... in case it is confusing, the leaf stamp is primarily solid, but has swirls through the center. I didn't paint the swirls onto the stamp.