Lost ma H2O's but....

This is found again! Here's my missing H2O's!!! Safe in my sight again ROFL.

I wrote up some technique instructions for Chookscraps this weekend. I thought I'd share it here with you all to. I love my H2O's and nearly died of fright these past few days when I 'lost' my whole collection of these gorgeous little pots of colour. Luckily I found them and they will never get put where I found them ever again.... there they are, just above here.... all 97 pots of them!

So here you go, how I make those lovely shimmery stamped image cards....

Painting direct to rubber stamps with Twinkling H2O’s

Gather your gear together, you’ll need your H2O’s, an aquash brush, fine spray mister of water, scrap paper, the stamp you want to use and an old cloth for cleaning your brush, water colour paper & white gloss card stock.

Give one or two spritzs to the top of your open h2o’s and wait a couple of minutes before
using them.
Next, choose for example like I have here, the brown and paint it on the stamp’s trunk, branches etc here and there, you do not have to be neat. It will go into the crevasses of your stamp. Keep adding the colours you want till the whole image is covered.
This is what your stamp will look like once you’ve covered it in all the colours you want to use. Bit messy but you will be surprised at the results.

Next give one quick spritz of water over the whole stamp. Then stamp it onto the matt water colour paper first.
If you stamp it onto gloss card first, you could end up with a mess like this, though it’s still useable.
Here you can see the 5 stampings I got and the order in which I stamped them on paper, then gloss.
Once dry, I’ve over stamped this gloss card one with the same stamp & black stazon. Does help if you use a stamp positioner to get it directly over the first stamping. My positioner is hiding from me at the moment, just like these H2O’s were earlier LOL.
Remember to clean your brush between applying colours so as not to muddy your pots of paint.

Do not do (as I found out the hard way) put the lids back onto your pots until they’ve dried. You could find that the lids will glue themselves on with the dried paint and with the strength of superglue!

If this happens, take heart, I’ve discovered if you put the pot into a small container of warm water enough so it just covers the lid, wait about 5 minutes or till you can see the paint leaching into the container of water. Your lid should come of easily then. Give it and the grooves of the jar a good clean, let them dry then put the lid back on.

Picture me, this insane woman trying to get the lid off that’s jammed tight. They are quite small pots, but so are my hands. Could I get the lids off some of them? Nooooo, even hubby couldn’t get them unstuck. Hence a cry for help last year to some stamping friends and this solution, which worked, whew!!

To clean your stamps when you’re done, give them a good scrub with eg Stampin Up’s stamp scrubber, then dry with an old face washer/nappy. If you’ve still got paint in the stamp grooves, a very soft wet tooth brush and a little liquid soft soap or Stampin Up cleaner will get it off. I’ve forgotten to clean a stamp before now and giving it a spritz and leaving it a few minutes to loosen the paint works a treat.

If you don’t have one of those stamp scrubber thingos, a great substitute is a paint edger replacement pad by Sherwoods(?), they are white, available from Bunnings in packs of two replacement pads and are dirt cheap. I used one for years till Stampin Up came to Australia.

If you have some of these lovely paints and haven't really 'explored' with them yet, give it a go!