September Blog Hop: Paper Garden

Welcome to the September Blog Hop with the Paper Garden stamp set.

If you are coming from Traci's Blog, welcome!  I know you have enjoyed some beautiful artwork!  When you are finished here, you will be traveling on to Paige's Blog to see what she has shared with you. 

I was inspired by this set to try out the new watercolors that are featured in the new Close to My Heart Annual Inspiration idea book.  (That is another blog post!)  As you will see, I tried two different techniques of stamping the images;  first I stamped in Archival Black ink and then watercolored over it and second, I heat embossed the image with clear detail embossing powder before watercoloring.

Here are a few tips and tricks that might help you.  If you heat set the Archival ink before watercoloring, the black ink stays darker.  You might also try the black Stazon ink as well.  When I used the water colors over the heat embossed image, I blotted the paint off the image.  I found that if I rubbed at all, it removed the embossing, therefore the image had less contrast.  I am not sure if this was because the paper was still wet from the paint or a characteristic of the watercolor paper.

You can purchase the Paper Garden Stamp set from your consultant or me for $17.95 or $5 with a qualifying order.  You can see the products I used to create these cards in the collage below and you can shop for them on my website.  Also, if you are local, I will be offering classes.  You can view the calendar of events here.

Now don't forget to hop on over to Paige's Blog for more artwork!

Enjoy the flowers,
Michele