Friends Bloom with Tamiko

A lot of my artsy friends buy coloring books.  It  relaxes them and allows them to play with color.  As for me, I prefer my stamped images.  I pick the stamps I feel like playing with and I just sit down and go for it.  Sometimes I see stamps I want to color.. long before i know I need to use it for a project or card of some sort.  I opften have afternoons where I will play with images and color, fussycut and add to my little plastic photo holder. I was very anxious to just play with one of Terri Sproul's newest stamp sets called Just Us Girls  with Sin City Stamps.   And this is what I created.. :)

Supplies needed:
Sin City Stamps- Jus Us Girls by Terri Sproul
Colour Arte- Twinkling H2O (various colors)
Derwent Inktense Water Color Pencils
Water color paper (used 120lb- pad from Michaels)
Sakura Metallic Gel Pens
Koi Water Brush
Pipette-optional (for adding water to my pots)
Ranger Archival Ink Pad
Deco Art Paint Pen
Helmar's Craft & Hobby PVA 
Misc- Unibal Vicion, Water, Scissors, paper trimmer a few beads and sari yarn

First I sat down and stamped my images on he paper with archival ink because once it's dry it is permanent, Then I added water with my pipette to a few of my favorite Twink colors and let them sit a few moments.  So i started with my Derwent pencils and I hate lines from the pencils.  So I scribble al the colors on my paper I think i might try to use. it 's no big deal.  Whatever I don't use is avaible to continue coloring or my daughter can play with it, without touching my pencils.  ::laughs::

After color was placed. I went over areas with my twinks because they shimmer and who doesn't like shimmer?  Then I fussy cut them. Hmm cards? Art journal pages? Hmm how bout a combo of both and create a mini art journal.  I quickly grabbed another sheet of water color paper and began laying splotches of shimmering colorful goodness like I saw over at CeeCee's Creations I will be practicing this technique with water colors for a WHILE I am sure.  So I got my paper and brush nice and juicy played like this to create a background to my mini art journal.

then I began to fold up my paper to book shaping I needed to do.  I felt it would be easier to do my line work, once I knew what images would go where.  So I folded my paper in eights. and on the length of the paper I cut on the middle fold between the center rectangles.

Then I took my Helmar's Craft & Hobby PVA Glue and placed along the base's edges.  Then I did some individual line work on my water color splotches.  Glue my *girls* to the pages, inked my edges, added yarn and beads and the quote... A FLOWER does not THINK of COMPPETING with another FLOWER..  It just BLOOMS.  The quote is how I feel about friends.  My friends are like flowers.  No need to compete, each is beautiful in their own way, just for being themself.  ::smiles::

A few more photos of the other pages..

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial  as much as I did creating this project!!  Can't wait to dive back into my stamps you can find at Sin City Stamps and my products from Colour Arte!!  Thanks for stopping by!!  Have a great weekend!! :)