GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Emily Midgett

Hi there! Emily Midgett here with you today from Sixth Street Sundries. I’m so grateful and so thrilled to have been asked to create a guest post for the Wplus9 blog. I completely and totally blame Dawn’s genius for my coloring obsession; one of her videos using Distress Inks for watercolors was the start of my interest in coloring my stamps, and that interest has turned into a full blown obsession.

If you visit my blog, you will see that color is one of my favorite elements of card making. I love utilizing unique color combinations on my cards, and today, I’m going to show you a few tips and tricks to help you add pops of color on your colored card stock using a layer of white as a “primer.” I have a video demonstrating two different techniques:

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

As you might have guessed, my inspiration for today’s projects were from the beautiful artwork from Rifle Paper Company. For the first technique, I use white pigment ink to act as a barrier between the colored card stock and the dye ink. I start by stamping the first layer of each layered stamp from Southern Summer Florals 2 using white pigment ink to create my background pattern.

To create my own custom floral background, I start by stamping the largest image on my background, then the next largest image, and work my way down to the smallest image to fill in any holes. After I had all of my pattern stamped in white, I used the same solid stamps to stamp over the white images, this time using Wplus9 dye inks. The white pigment layer helps to act as a kind of "primer" to help keep the brightness of the colored card stock from distorting the color of the dye ink. Even the greens, which on those bright pinks and corals would have turned to a muddy mess, look vibrant with the addition of the layer of white.

Once you have a design in mind, this technique can really create some lovely, quick backgrounds. The flowers from Southern Summer Florals 1 and 2 are so lovely that you don't really need much else to make a card from them; here, I've created three cards with a similar style and color scheme, using some simple greetings from Grateful Greetings, Hand Lettered Thanks and the matching dies, and Basic Greetings dies.

Which color scheme is your favorite?

For my second technique, I wanted to show how you could use a while pencil with your colored pencils on colored card stock to create a really bright and vibrant image. The technique is essentially the same as the previously mentioned technique; stamp your image using white pigment ink, then lay down a layer of white pencil before adding your color over the top.

For this card, I used the Beautiful Bouquets: Dahlia stamp set, stamped a few times in white pigment ink in the corner of my coral card stock. Then, moving petal by petal so as to keep the edges of the petals nice and crisp, I add the colored pencils, starting with the darkest shades towards the center of the flower, and blending the colors out using my Prismacolor blender pencil. (You can watch the step by step process in the video if you are having difficulty visualizing this process!)

After I had colored my floral swag in the top corner of the coral panel, I added a greeting using the hello die from the Basic Greetings die set that I die cut three times and adhered together to create a dimensional die cut. I paired this with a sentiment from the Beautiful Bouquet: Dahlia stamp set stamped in black on an oval from the Anastasia Tag Dies. I used my T-square and white pencil to create a rectangular frame around the edge to help draw the eye down towards the greeting.

The final touch was to add some sparkly sequins to add a bit of texture and sparkle!

Well, that's all for me! (If you made it to the end of this extra long post, bravo to you and thank you for sticking with me!) I want to send Dawn a massive thank you for allowing me to be a guest on the Wplus9 blog. It's been an honor and a pleasure!! I hope I was able to share something useful with you! Have a marvelous day!

~Emily

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured Wplus9 dies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase.

Wplus9 PURE COLOR Black Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 PURE COLOR Lake House Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Basic Greetings Die Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Beautiful Bouquet: Dahlia Stamps Shop at: WP9
Flamingo PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Little Piggy PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Sweet Gelato PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Siren Song PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
Wplus9 Southern Summer Florals 1 Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Southern Summer Florals 2 Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Grateful Greetings Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Hand Lettered Thanks Shop at: WP9
Wplus9 Hand Lettered Thanks Die Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Anastasia Tag Die Shop at: WP9	Bloomsberry PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Sweet Nectar PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9