tutorial tuesday...easy peasy watercoloring for a detailed stamp

I've been compiling a few tutorials for some of my favorite go to techniques and thought I would start sharing them with you. This tutorial originally appeared on the front page of the Scrapbook News and Review in August 2011. I love really detailed stamps, but sometimes the effort that goes into coloring those images requires too much time so I started using this technique for a quick and easy way of coloring those images.

Supplies

cardstock (Stampin' Up Very Vanilla and Blush Blossom used here)

inks (a very light beige or grey and a darker shade of the same color - dark brown or black)

a watercolor medium (I used Stampin' Pastels)

a detailed line art stamp (Serendipidity Stamps used here)

Step 1 : Cut a piece of neutral cardstock to the exact same size as your stamp/stamp block.

 Step 2: Line up your stamp perfectly over the piece of cardstock and stamp the image in your lighter color ink.

 Step 3: Add blobs of color using whatever watercolor medium you prefer. You don't have to be particular about where the color falls - you are simply using the lightly stamped image as a guid to choose which color to use. As you can see in the photo above, at this point, your image is not going to look pretty!

 Step 4: Ink your stamp with the darker color ink, line the stamp up over your cardstock like you did in the first step and stamp the image.

Voila! Isn't that awesome? And soooo easy! If your second round of stamping is a little off, then I've found that a little light sponging of the darker ink all over the image will make it look near perfect!

Place your image layer on a piece of coordinating cardstock and go ahead and create a beautiful watercolored card... in ten minutes!