Special Guest Crystal Thompson

Hello there! Crystal Thompson here as a special guest for Whimsy Stamps.

Today's very sweet post using the super cute stamp set called Teddy Best Friends from Whimsy Stamps.

The bears on this stamp set were just begging to be water colored, so with that in mind I decided to keep the card on a Clean and Simple vision with minimal embellishment.

To make this card, I heat embossed the bear image with gold embossing powder on regular 110lb white cardstock. 

 Once the image had dried up, I went ahead and hand cut around the image, and set aside.

 Now for my background , I have a piece of light kraft cardstock cut 4.25 in by 5.50in. Then I layered a white cardstock that is .25 in smaller than my base.

Once everything was layered, with a clean brush I drew a circle on the cardstock with clean water, then dropped some lilac water.  Once that dried, I water colored a blue circle, and splattered blue watercolor. Before it all dried, I did a few flickers of dark pink.

Once everything has dried, I heat embossed the sentiment in gold embossing powder Promise You Won't Forget Me. To add some sparkle with gold spray, I added flickers to the entire card.To finish up, I placed the bear with foam adhesive above the sentiment. I love the way this card turned out, very soft and subtle yet clean. Now don't go anywhere yet, I have a second card with a different technique.

For this card, the background is using the ever popular ink smooching technique, however I did it with some different ink that made this look kinda like alcohol blends. Let me tell you how I did this. 

Since the background on this is a background was too busy, I thought the bear should be simple and colored with Copics.

 To make the background, I used Distress Oxides. I thought the formula would work well to smooch and it would react different to a dye ink. On a piece of acetate I swirled Cracked Pistachio, Worn Lipstick, Wilted Violet and Broken China. Then I added a couple drops of water on the acetate. I did not blend blend the colors, just add the drops. Then on the cardstock that is to be smooched, I added a wash of clean water with my large brush. Then I smooched the paper onto the colors and lifted. I had some white left on my cardstock, so I turned the page and smooched again. Then allow it to air dry for about 5 minutes.

Once it was dried up, I heat embossed the sentiment in gold embossing powder. Then added gold splatters.

To finish off the card, the little bear was added to the center of the card with foam adhesive. 

I really liked using both techniques on the backgrounds as it allows to work on one card, while the other dries up. 

Didn't I say this stamp set was the cutest?! 

Which one is your favorite?

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Crystal