Watercolour Resist Box Tutorial

Hello friends! Today I have a watercolour resist tutorial to share with you made for this month's Eileen Hull Art With Heart challenge 'Choose your own theme'.

I love to read and from when I started reading up until my twenties or so, I had what I called a 'book book', where I documented all the books that I read; the author, number of pages, year of publication, a short summary and if there were any quotes that I liked. I found one of my 'book books' the other day and it was fun to look through it. At some stage I stopped doing that and the other day I realised that even though I often mark quotes on my Kindle, I rarely go back and look for them, and somehow it is a little harder to remember which books I read when they are not physical books on the shelf. So I thought I'd make a little project where I can jot down some details about books that I particularly liked.

I had fun using my new Brusho Crystal Colours here, I just love seeing the magic when they blend. As soon as I have played around with them some more, I'll do a video. You can see another project I made with them here. 

Start by die cutting the Box w/Scalloped Flap from white mat board. This is an XL die and it needs the Extended Cutting Pads. Use this sandwich: Extended Cutting Pad, die facing up, mat board, second Extended Cutting Pad. I ended up not using the two little flowers. 

I used stamps by Darkroom Door on this project and started by white embossing the French Script background stamp on the box. I brushed some of the powder away, for a more distressed look. Also, brush the powder off from the flaps before you melt it, since melted powder makes it harder to adhere the project together.

Now to the really fun part. I misted the mat board with water and sprinkled Emerald Green, Turquoise, Light Brown and Grey Brusho crystals on the mat board. You need very little. Mist again to make them blend more. When the mat board was dry, I coloured it on the inside too.

For the journaling cards, I cut 2.8 x 3.6 in rectangles from smooth (hot press) watercolour paper. Add a little bit of Brusho Crystals in a paint palette and add some water. I always use a plastic pipette to add water, since it gives me great control. Mix to make watercolour paint. Mist the paper and paint sort of randomly, using the same four colours as for the box. If you want to, you can sprinkle just a few crystals here and there into the wet paint.

I made one side of each card a little darker and one side lighter. These are the lighter sides, for the writing.

When the cards were dry, I stamped them with various Darkroom Door images and words, using Watering Can ink. The grey ink gives a softer look than black. I also used the Splatter stamp to add some texture.

Round the corners of the cards.

Die cut a bird and two leaves with the Birds & Butterflies set from a left over piece of coloured watercolour paper. Die cut a second bird to place underneath the first one, since the wing will be folded up.

The bird was stamped with another script stamp and Watering Can ink and given an eye. It was inked with Hickory Smoke.

I stamped this wonderful sentiment on a left over piece of paper and cut it into strips. The twine both keeps the box close and serves as a nest for the bird. I used hot glue to assemble the box.

I like the combination of script and a typed font.

Glue the leaves in the corner.

I love the blended colours of this project. The Emerald Green is almost shining. I aimed for darker colours than what I often use here and tried out different colour combinations on scrap paper first. It was actually my son who added the Grey, because he wanted to test all the colours in the box and picked that one out first. When we tried it, I liked the way it looked together with the other colours that I had already chosen. Here you can also see that you can spot the text also where I brushed off the powder, pretty cool.

Here's a look at the back of the cards. I used the Bookworm set, but also a bunch of other stamps, since books can be about so many different things.

These are the lighter coloured side of the cards, making it easier to see what will be written there.

And some more cards.

I love the unpredictable effect of watercolours, here it almost looks like a storm is coming, but with a tiny bit of a yellow sun reflecting in the water.

Isn't this a lovely rose?

And of course, there had to be a close up of one of the cards with a bird. Books give freedom to discover places and times far away from your own.

Here's the back of the box, with more yummy colour.

The box is 3 x 4 in and is also a great size for storing business cards. I used a Black Soot marker to cover up the white mat board along the edges of the box.

Here you can see the open box and the pile of cards.

Thank you for watching! I hope you enjoyed this post. There is still time to join us in the challenge.

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Sizzix Box w/Scallop Flap & Flowers	Sizzix Sizzlits 3PK Birds & Butterflies	Colourcraft BRUSHO Crystal Watercolors 24 Set	Darkroom Door FRENCH SCRIPT	Darkroom Door BOOKWORM
Darkroom Door ROSE	Darkroom Door ROBIN	Darkroom Door GUM TREES	Darkroom Door NEW YORK VOLUME 1	Darkroom Door WILDERNESS VOLUME 1
Darkroom Door FRENCH SCRIPT Texture	Darkroom Door PEN NIBS	Darkroom Door SPLATTER Texture	Darkroom Door VENETIAN VOLUME 1	Ranger Archival Ink Pad JET BLACK
Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival WATERING CAN	Tim Holtz DISTRESS INK BLACK SOOT	Tim Holtz Distress Ink HICKORY SMOKE	Tim Holtz Distress MARKERS BLACK SOOT	Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK
Sizzix Little Sizzles - 6" x 13" Mat Board Pack, 6 White Sheets	Ranger Embossing Powder WHITE	Big Shot Machine	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White	Sizzix Accessory Cutting Pads, Extended
Sizzix CUTTING PAD XL Pair	Tim Holtz DISTRESS SPRAYER Ranger	We R Memory Keepers Cropadile RADIUS Corner Chomper	Ranger Inkssentials US HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL	Ranger Inkssentials EUROPEAN HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL
Ranger Inkssentials INK BLENDING TOOL	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET

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Additional supplies:
Surfaces: Fabriano Hot Press Studio Watercolor Paper
Stamps: Darkroom Door: Prague Vol 2