Watercolor “Stamping” with Stencils

Good morning! Jess here with a pair of cards using the Peacock Feather stencil in a slightly unconventional way for totally different results!

I’ll admit, my inspiration for these cards came purely from a desire to not have to wash embossing paste off of my stencils. My workspace isn’t near a sink and the last time I tried to keep a dish of warm water nearby to dip my stencil in I ended up dropping my card in the water. I know, I know…totally operator error but now I’m nervous! ;)

So I decided to see if I could ink my stencil up as you would ink a stamp! I started by inking the Peacock Feather stencil with Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean, Mermaid Lagoon, and Seedless Preserves Distress Ink and spritzing it with water. This first card was created with very little water which resulted in a patchier watercolor effect.

After I inked and spritzed the Peacock Feather stencil I carefully picked it up and turned it over onto a piece of watercolor paper. Yes, this is not a technique for someone who minds getting their hands inky! ;) I pressed a paper towel over the back of the stencil to soak up some of the extra ink and then removed the stencil and blotted the paper with a clean paper towel to remove any remaining ink. I was left with a soft patchy watercolor pattern. You can definitely see the pattern of the stencil but it’s muted.

Next I die-cut the word ‘prayers’ from the Prayers Stamp & Cut set with white cardstock and then pressed a Versamark pad over it before heat-embossing it with silver embossing powder. I repeated the process two more times to get a thicker coating of embossing powder…it almost looks like a metallic embellishment. I die-cut a heart from the Nesting Hearts Infinity Dies and stamped the rest of the sentiment from Prayers Stamp and Cut onto the heart and heat-embossed it with silver embossing powder. I adhered the word to the heart and then adhered the heart to my stenciled background. Finally I added a sprinkling of sparkling clear sequins to finish the card.

My second card follows a similar technique but this time I tried to ink the individual feathers with different colors and used a lot more water. This resulted in a much smoother blend of color as well as a brighter look. I stamped the sentiment from Hello Stamp & Cut onto black cardstock and heat-embossed it with white embossing powder. Then I die-cut the ‘hello’ from black cardstock and heat-embossed it three times with clear embossing powder. I adhered them to the stenciled background and then added a few Ombre Ocean sequins to finish the card!

And in case you’re wondering, I laid my stencil on a baby wipe while I worked on the rest of the card and then just a simple rinse removed all the ink! ;) Thanks so much for visiting and have a fabulous day!