Watercolor Bokeh Background Tutorial

Hello Sweet and Sassy friends, it's Ceal here to share how I made this beautiful background for my card.  

Here are the supplies you will need. Some type of watercolor paper (I used Tim Holtz), White pigment ink, a sponge dauber, three or four different colors of re-inkers (I ended up using only 3), Painters or Washi tape to use around your paper (this acts as a seal and keeps the colors on your paper), A stencil with circles (I made mine from circle diecuts)  a paintbrush and of course water.

This first step is to tape your paper to some sort of surface, could be a cart sheet, I use a cutting board. Next you will wet your entire paper with water. Place a drop of re-inker in a palette and pick up a little with your brush then  randomly with each color, dab it on your paper (this is the cool part) it immediately reacts with the water and creates little bursts of color, if it doesn't create a burst you do not have enough water on your paper. 

Now it will need to dry, you can speed up the process by using your heat gun.

After your paper is completely dry, take your stencil, place it over your paper and use the sponge dauber to sponge the white ink randomly all over it.

This is what it will look like after you have competled all the steps, remove the tape and you have a beautiful Bokeh background for your card. 

For my card I used the Majestic Monarch set, along with the Monarch

dies. I colored the butterfly with Copic markers and then decided it was just a little to bright for my background. I stamped another butterfly image in Versamark ink and embossed it in white to lay over the top of my colored image to make it more subtle. The greeting is from the set Keep In Touch, Too

This is really a fun technique, I hope you will give it a try.