Watercolor Paper Comparison - Pt 2 - Stamping Ink

Yesterday I shared the first part of the Watercolor Paper Comparison - telling you a little bit about the different types of watercolor paper and the brands and types of paper I would be comparing.  I also shared links on where to find these papers, sizes, weights and the all important prices!  Several people asked about buying the large size sheets.  Dick Blick has a 6 sheet minimum (any brand) to mail the watercolor paper sheets but it wasn't bad shipping - $13.95 - that was for a huge flat box for the watercolor paper and a smaller box containing all of the pads, cards and other types of paper I ordered at the same time.  Quite a bargain IMO.

On to today's comparison....

Today I wanted to share how various types of inks preformed on the different types of watercolor papers.  I am going to be using some of the most popular and/or requested black inks (in alpha order): Archival Ink; Hero Arts; Memento; My Favorite Things, StazOn, VersaFine.

For this test I tamped the stamp (Just For Fun Rubber Stamps - Fruit Cube) on each ink pad 3 times to ensure that it was completely covered.  You'll see that some of the pads are softer than others and I got ink on the insides of the pear - oops!  Anyway, ignore that ;)  Some inks transferred well onto the papers while others not so much.  I did notice that some of the inks seemed to soak in and spread a bit causing the loss of really fine details (Archival & Hero Arts) while others did not.  I was surprised to see that the very best ink that did the best on all papers was the StazOn Midi!  I hadn't really used it for watercolor papers before - I mainly used it for slick non-porous surfaces.  Silly me...it works great on watercolor papers too!  VersaFine also did very well but it seemed to fade a bit on some of the watercolor papers. Hero Arts ink did very well on the Hero Arts paper.  To really see the differences you may want to click on each photo to enlarge it.  

Note, all of the inks were stamped in the same order... bottom row - L-R Archival Ink, Hero Arts, Memento; top row - L-R - My Favorite Things, StazOn and VersaFine. The watercolor paper brand/type and weight is listed below the images.

So what are your thoughts?  

Any surprises?

Tomorrow is Club Scrap Blog Hop day 

so I'll have the next installment for you on Thursday.

Picnic Club Scrap Blog Hop & Give A Way!!

Welcome everyone to the

Picnic Club Scrap Blog Hop

and

HAPPY SUMMER!!!

This months kit was so bright and cheery - 

just perfect for welcoming in summer and all the fun that goes along with it.  

I was so tickled when I saw the huge slice of watermelon stamp that was included in the Picnic UM Collection.  It was the starting point for my whole idea for this months project.

Since everyone owns/prefers different brands of ink I thought I would share the colors I used when creating with this kit.  I used a combination of Archival and Distress Inks and they are as follows:

Archival Inks:  Leaf Green; French Ultramarine & Magenta Hue

Distress Inks: Mowed Lawn, Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean & Spun Sugar

and here's what I created....

I used the dark green cardstock to make a pocket - with a bit of the pink seed printed cardstock as it's sides to imitate a slice of watermelon.  The stamped slice of watermelon is actually the closure for the little pocket.  I added a dot of velcro hook & loop to hold the lid closed. 

Once you open  up the flap a nifty little book pops out!

The book dimensions are 3.5" x 5.5" - 

the watermelon pocket is of course a bit larger. 

Here it is totally open.....

(pause for intermission...I had to pick up my goodies and race inside as it started to rain again!)

Back on dry land - here are the various inside pages.  The book pages are laid out in sections - a large one on the left, a small page in the center houses a card that will only pull out so far where you can add journaling, small photos or other info. and one large page on the right side.  As you can see from the photo above there are 5 of these sections for a total of 20 pages as well as 5 pull out cards.  Lots of real estate for such a small book.

As I mentioned the pull out card can be viewed from both sides..

more opportunities for decorating as well!

I made a hot dog from the hamburger stamp by first stamping the bottom bun twice.  I then stamped the hamburger patty on red cardstock with a brown ink creating a pretty good likeness.  I added a bit of Liquid Pearl "Mustard to top it off.  The glass of lemon aid was stamped twice on vellum...once in yellow, once in  blue.  I fussy cut the drink portion out and mounted it over the blue glass image.  The slice of lemon was stamped on plain old cardstock.

and the rest of the book....

And I didn't forget my Gnome friend...  He's gettin' ready to barbecue in his watermelon leisure suit!  Smartly outfitted in deep watermelon green pants and belt with a pink watermelon seed designer shirt topped off with a light green check hat!  I'm sure he'll win best dressed at all the picnics this summer.  LOL!!

It's time to skip on over to Deb's blog....

Lift Bridge Cards & Crafts

remember, if you get lost along the way as you hop

you can find the complete list of blogs at:

Club Scrap Creates

Have a wonderful day friends!

OH MY!!!  I forgot to mention the give-a-way!!  Anyone who leaves a comment will be entered to win the Slice of Watermelon Mini Album!!

You have until 7-2-14 to post a comment to be entered into the drawing!

Good Luck :)

Club Scrap Big Deal Stamped Collage Card

Recently Rubber Stamp Madness had a call for Stamped Collage Cards....  which got me to thinkin' how much I love to make them so today I have one to share with you that I made using Club Scraps Big Deal kit/stamps plus some pages from a vintage Hoyle card game book and a few other bits.  

This collage was made on a sheet of mixed media paper that I sprayed with a couple different colors of ink.  I then used IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko's Vintage Creative Medium (more about that later) to add bits and pieces of a few inside pages of the book plus the title page (up in the lh corner). 

After the medium had time to dry I started stamping.  I started off by stamping the cards in a light grey ink and the tiny suit symbols in a vintage brown ink over the entire card.  I then stamped the large and medium suits in Red Geranium and Jet Black Archival Inks.  The joker was stamped using Watering Can (dark grey).  I stamped the hand of cards using a light blue ink that I aged by adding a layer  of Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I finished the whole thing off with a bit of pen work to bring it all together.  It really is such fun to stamp a collage!  If you have a free moment or two you should give it a try!

Have a wonderful weekend friends!!

Stamped Tea Bag Idea #2

Tuesday I shared my idea for using a stamped tea bag as a focal point of your card.  Today I wanted to share another idea I had - a cut out card with the tea bag mounted in the cut out!

I started off by inking up & stamping the tea bag as I did in the original technique.

 Next I cut and folded a card.  I then die cut a scallop oval from the card.  I cut a matching oval from 2 sheets of a darker shade of blue cardstock.

I mounted one of the darker pieces of cardstock on the inside of the card, then glued the stamped tea bag over the opening.

Here is what it looks like so far.... Kinda rough but that's o.k.

because we're going to use the second die-cut piece to cover the messy parts.

And I added a bit of stamping to the inside of the card....

and a few extra bits to the front as well.  You can see the sentiment through the tea bag when the card is flat (it wasn't all the way down in this photo).

So, what do you think?  

The possibilities are endless aren't they?

Gotta get dh to drink some more tea...he's not drinking it fast enough - LOL!!

Tea Bag Stamped Focal Point

Hey All!

I hope you're enjoying March so far...the past two days here have been lovely...50's with a bit of sun and lots of melting snow.  The mud isn't much fun but we're on the Indiana Roller Coaster called Spring so we only have to wait a day or so and that'll change.  

Actually we don't have to wait long, I just got a weather alert in my inbox...We're under a Winter Storm Warning from 2:00a.m. to 5:00p.m. tomorrow... "HEAVY SNOWFALL RATES IN EXCESS OF A INCH PER HOUR... AND NORTH WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 35 TO 40 MPH WILL RESULT IN HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS LATE TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY. THE STRONG WINDS MAY ALSO CAUSE TREE BRANCHES TO BE BLOWN DOWN...POSSIBLY RESULTING IN A FEW POWER OUTAGES."
So there you go...fun fun fun.  Thursday & Friday it's supposed to be back up to the 40's then more snow on Saturday and Sunday...  I wasn't kidding about the roller coaster - LOL!!!

Anyway, on to today's technique.  Tea Bag Stamping!  I've had these pieces of empty used tea bags on my desk most of the winter just waiting for me to get around to them so I finally decided I was tired of moving them around and it was time to put them to work.  This is another fun "green" craft that really adds a great dimension and texture to your projects.

Before I move onto the card I wanted to talk a bit about preparing the tea bags and how it changes to look of the dried tea bag paper.  The piece on the left was emptied and rinsed out immediately after use which is why it's a light tea color.  The center tea bag was left to dry naturally with the tea still in the bag.  The third tea bag was emptied after use but not rinsed yielding a deeper tea color.

Since this is a color heavy technique I'm using the rinsed tea bag.  I started off by pouncing a small puddle of Spiced Marmalade Distress Stain in the center of the tea bag.  I then used my Niji Waterbrush to push the ink around where desired.

Next I added Mowed Lawn along the bottom edge and right side and Peacock Feathers along the upper portion and left side of the tea bag.  You can let this dry naturally or speed up the process by using your heat tool to quickly dry it.

I then stamped the desired images using Black Archival Ink.

The wicked cool thing about using tea bags....the color and images show up on BOTH sides of the tea bag!!!  A reverse image without any fancy techniques or additional steps.  Way cool in my book!

Stamped Side....

Reverse side 

Now many people use this type of image over plain white or colored cardstock.  I think it's neat to use it over a stamped background as a bit of that background will show through....

And here's how I finished it off....

Tea bags are so much fun to use! 

I have a couple of other fun techniques

that I'd like to share the next couple days, 

I hope you'll stop by and check it out.