When you make a card, how do you know what coloring medium to use? We have so many different ways to color. For today's experiment I'm going to focus on Stampin' Blends and Watercolor Pencils. Let's start with asking the question what look do you want? Stampin' Blends will naturally give you a brighter, smoother finish. While, Watercolor Pencils will leave you with a softer look. Let's dive into this card made identically, but with different coloring mediums. NOTE: when I made these cards I didn't have the new Hybrid ink so I'll list and explain the inks I used. I'm using the Make A Wish Set. Grab this in my Online Store today, it's sooooo cute! First up is Stampin' Blends.
For my blends card I stamped all my images in Memento. Memento ink works brilliantly with Stampin' Blends. I stamped the fence and stones on a 5" x 3 3/4" piece of Basic White. The well, bushes, flowers and duck were stamped on another piece and fussy cut after coloring, yes fussy cut, sorry there are no dies for this set. This is the same process for the pencil card too.
Check the supply list linked below for all the colors used. Stampin' Blends are vibrant and bold. The coloring is smooth and clean. You can miss with coloring with Stampin' Blends. The downside, you have to have a lot of colors, especially for this card. That could be quite an investment.
Let's dive into the Watercolor Pencil card. Like I mentioned above I stamped everything the same and I used Basic White Cardstock. Would I typically use Basic White when water coloring, no! But, with the pencils you're not adding a lot of water, in fact you can even color with a Wink Of Stella Brush or Blender Pen (note: our Blender Pens are NOT Stampin' Blends). So, because a lot of water isn't needed our white cardstock is fine. That being said, you need to be diligent NOT to add a lot of water to the cardstock. For these images I stamped them in StazOn Ink. I'll be honest, I hate StazOn. I don't like the way it stamps, it's sometimes hard to get a clean solid image. Maybe that's just me, but I'm not a fan of StazOn but to water color you need to use a waterproof ink.
You can see the softer, muted tone that the pencils give. Can you get bold, intense color with the Watercolor Pencils. Yes, of course. But it takes more layers and more time. But if softer if what you're going for this is a winner! Additionally, the cost of the pencils is far cheaper than the cost of the blends. You can get both packages of our Watercolor Pencils for less than three colors of our Stampin' Blends. If you're just getting into coloring this is a great cost effective option.
For both cards I lightly ink blended the background, sky and ground. So what's the verdict? Are you team Stampin' Blends or Watercolor Pencils? Do you have someone in your life who would prefer one over the other? This was a fun comparison, I hope you enjoyed it. I have two supply lists linked below. One for each card. The measurements for both cards are identical.
Measurements
Balmy Blue
8 1/2" x 5 1/2" score long side at 4 1/4"
Gray Granite
5 1/8" x 3 7/8"
Basic White
5" x 3 3/4"
3" x 3/4"
Pieces to stamp/fussy cut
Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!
