The new Brusho Watercolor Crystals in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Catalog are simply beautiful. So naming the perfect stamp set to match them (Beautiful Day) was a great move for Stampin’ Up!. The broad stroke lines in the flower and butterfly images show up wonderfully next to the spritzed color crystals.
Curious about the technique? If you haven’t used Brusho Crystals yet, let me explain just a bit. These are watercolor pigment that come in a little jar. Just shake out the crystals and activate with water (or another liquid). The techniques and different ways to use them are limitless, so I’ll just start with what I did here to create this spritzed Beautiful Day card.
Note that stamping can be done before (best if heat embossed) or after the Brusho is applied. For this card, I heat embossed first, then added Brusho. But the technique also works beautifully when the Brusho steps are completed and the flower is stamped on the dry card stock.
To add the color, I lightly spritzed the Thick Whisper White Card Stock with Stampin’ Mist. Watercolor Paper also works for this technique, but I wanted the true white color to match the Petal Passion Designer Series Paper, so went with Whisper White in this case. Water also works fine for spraying, but my Stampin’ Mist is handy, so why go looking for another spray bottle?
When the paper was damp, I punched a single hole with a pushpin in the top of the Brusho Crystal Watercolor container (yup, just one hole – that’s plenty). I shook Brusho crystals onto the paper and then re-spritzed to further activate the colors. Just repeat the shaking – spritzing steps until the desired color depth and pattern are achieved.
Finally, I wanted to add my birthday greeting, but not cover up the flower and color. This is the perfect place to add Vellum Card Stock to a project! Remember to let your stamped image dry a little longer on vellum, and be sure to hide your adhesive under an embellishment or two.
Speaking of adhesive – remember in the fall when Stampin’ Up! ran a 10 day sale on Fast Fuse Adhesive – but ended the sale after just a day when supplies of Fast Fuse ran out? Well the SALE IS BACK!
Mark your calendar now – I’m predicting that this sale won’t last the full 5 days. ***UPDATED 2/8 – Looks like I was right…the sale didn’t last very long! And now back to our regularly scheduled crafting :)
Fast Fuse Adhesive is my go-to perfect adhesive for projects like this Brusho card, when I need a super-strong glue that will hold down paper and keep the watercolor warping from affecting my whole project. On watercolor projects, paper has a tendency to bend. Fast Fuse is my favorite complementary adhesive.
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Meg
what a great blog post, I am still undecided about the Brushos, I keep watching video tutorial after tutorial and some days I think that I am going to get some and then other days I think not. I think it is because they are so unpredictable, they can be very messy and there is very little control over where the Brusho crystals go. I know that they look very pretty when dry but it is that feeling of not being in control of a medium that makes me wary of purchasing this product. :O)
Messy but fun :) Sometimes it’s the happy accidents that create the coolest results!