Not Finished

Hello friends! Just a quick post from me today, sharing another brand new Sweet 'n Sassy stamp set, God is for You. The new set features six encouraging sentiments that can be used to mix with any type of images or designs. The entire stamp set can be seen below:

I broke out my brand new Zig Clean Color Watercolor Brushes for this project. (Ohhh...I'm so excited about these markers...they rock!) I started by stamping and embossing a few flowers from the Lovely Lotus stamp set with white embossing powder. Once my embossing was cool, I colored the flowers and background with the Zig markers. The sentiment and dragonflies were stamped in black Archival Ink and the panel was mounted on black cardstock. Pretty simple card, but those great Zig colors pack a powerful punch. 

Be sure to head to the Sweet 'n Sassy store to check out all of the new products! I'll be back with a new card, featuring another new set, next week.

Happy Crafting!

Gesso Resist Technique

Hi friends! Today I'm sharing a quick and easy technique for creating amazing backgrounds....Gesso Resist! Here are the materials you're going to need:

I'm using a piece of watercolor paper (you'll need a heavier cardstock for this technique), gesso (Liquitex is my fav), a sponge, and background stamp, I'm using the Typewriter Text background stamp from Sweet 'n Sassy.

Put some gesso on a non-stick craft sheet and use the sponge to apply a thin layer of gesso on to the stamp. Use a light hand to apply the gesso as too much will create a puddle of paint and will keep the edges of the design from being crisp. (You can see how the top of the stamp has a little too much paint)

Stamp onto the piece of watercolor paper. You'll see that some of the archival ink, that was on my stamp 'cause I never clean my stamp, came off with the gesso. This won't affect the results. Be sure to clean your stamp immediately after stamping as the gesso will harden and effect the use of your stamp.

Next, grab a few Distress Stains and a water bottle. Apply the Distress Stains to a non-stick craft sheet, you can see my bottles above each color, and then spritz the stains with some water. This will allow the color to freely move over the watercolor paper.

Swipe the cardstock through the ink. Be careful not to move the cardstock around too much or your colors will become muddy (well, my colors would 'cause I'm using colors on the opposite side of the color wheel! LOL!). Spritz your cardstock with more water if you want the color to move around more.

Check out these results! Ohhh...love it! The gesso resists the stains, making the background design pop out...love it! You can see how I allowed the stains to drip off of the page. I had originally intended to cut a shape out of this piece of paper, but I loved the drips so much I use the entire piece!

I finished my card by adding a flower from the Lovely Lotus stamp set, colored with Faber Castell watercolor pencils, a few dragonflies, from the same set, and a sentiment.

Hope you enjoyed today's tutorial!! If you're interested in more of my video tutorials, including other gesso resist projects, subscribe to my You Tube Channel, here.