Backporch: Technique of the Week: Painting Your Stamps with Nuance

This post is in conjunction with the Art 'n Soul Newsletter article, "Technique of the Week". This card and technique is also featured on the Magenta blog right now.

The stamp I chose was the beautiful Clover Silhouette designed by the talented Ellie Knoll. You could use any stamp that has a lot of solid surface, rather than outlines. I also chose to use some of the newest colors of Nuance, but really any colors of Nuance would also look great.

I used the MC27 Round Shape Mask for this technique. You get two pieces with this template: the outside of the circle, which covers your card and leaves the circle open to work in; and the circle itself.

I taped down my card panel and taped down the outer piece of the stencil over it, leaving the circle open to stamp in.

I put Nuance powder onto my craft mat in little piles. I inked the stamp with Versamark ink (clear, sticky ink) to help the colors stick. Then, using a damp brush, I picked up Nuance powder from my mat and painted it onto the solid areas of the stamp.

I spritzed the stamp to activate the color, and stamped it onto a piece of watercolor cardstock. I stamped off onto a second piece of cardstock, and then repeated the process to have a second image on my card.

The template masked off the area around the stamping.

The panel that I stamped off onto will make a second card, but the image will be a little lighter.

Once I had stamped the image twice, I removed the template and dried the image carefully. I placed the inside of the template (the circle) over the stamped images to mask them. I then tapped Nuance powder all around the circular mask, and spritzed the powder with water.

You could also do the outside of the circle first; it works either way.

To define the circle around the main image further, I first dried the background, and then placed the template with the open circle back on the panel, and drew around the circle with a green Micron pen.

I sprayed water onto the rest of the Nuance on my mat, and picked up some with a brush and flicked spots onto the background image. Last, I added a sentiment and mounted it to a card.

At the end, not wanting to waste the wet Nuance that was left on my mat, I dragged another piece of watercolor cardstock through it, and created a background for another card.

This technique was really fun, and was not hard to do. Try it out on any stamps you may have with a lot of solid surface.

Magenta Products Used:

(If you are local, please look for products at Art 'n Soul. If you are not local and wish to find Magenta products, you can click on the link in the stamp or product name below each image, or you can visit the Magenta online store here).