Wednesday, 25 February 2026

Watercolour book of hearts

'Hearts' - using distress inks like watercolours



 Cut a long strip of watercolour paper - mine was 7 cm wide and 38 cm long.


Crease the central line vertically, cut 1 cm off each end and score at 6 cm to create each page.

Create distressed backgrounds by using stencils - rub some ink randomly over the stencil, spritz with water and lay randomly a couple of times along the strip, repeat with another colour and a different stencil and dry. 



Then take an old credit card or something similar and aged mahogany ink, press one edge into the ink pad, spritz water lightly on the horizontal line of the card pages and push the edge of the credit card into it and watch the colour disperse outwards as it moves into and through the water. Dry and stamp some random text along the line just above and below using aged mahogany ink.

Take some card and using the dip, drip, spritz and dry technique, create distressed backgrounds from which you can die-cut some hearts. I used all the colour inks in my colour palette and the distress spritz sprays as well.

bring the pages together with the die-cut hearts, some thread for texture and rub-ons.




I added distress ink and distress spritz colour palettes and left over hearts to the back pages of the book.


I also made a belly band to keep the booklet together.



 xxx





Supplies

Tim Holtz distress inks - aged mahogany, picked raspberry, candied apple, tattered rose, spun sugar, saltwater taffy, picket fence, 

Tim Holtz distress Spritz - picked raspberry, worn lipstick, tattered rose

Sizzix Tim Holtz dies - Vault Matchbook, Vault lovebirds,

Tim Holtz stamps - Ledger Script CMS241, 

Fabriano watercolour paper, bookmaking thread. punched hearts.