Coloring onto stamps, part 2 - Clean look

For those of you who are not afraid of drawing on your rubber with an alcohol marker, here is the second part of the post on coloring directly to your stamps. This quick technique is a little trickier than the last one, since you have to work quickly and not over-saturate your paper. This however, is the way that I have colored stamps for a while, and I've been happy with the results.

Today I'm using this cute AMuse Party Lanterns stamp. I'm working on a good cardstock that I know will hold my marker ink nice and crisply. The first technique it didn't matter as much, this technique works best on smooth, crisp paper. I colored directly onto the clean stamp with a G17, R59, B34, and YR16 (make sure the stamp is clean! otherwise the ink residue will stain your marker tip). Now, how do I get the image off the stamp without blurring it like we did with the flower?

This one's easy- for a small picture like this, take your colorless blender and pre-soak the area on the paper. Now stamp onto the damp paper. You may have to hold it for a moment, but it will give you acrisp impression. Stamp before the blender gets a chance to evaporate.

You can use the same spritzer that I showed before filled with blender, but I've found that it's easier to over-saturate the paper with the blender that way, though it's much better for soaking a large area, say for those larger Thomas Kinkade stamps. Or, you can also take a Wide colorless blender to soak the paper evenly.

Once I've stamped this I cannot color it in with markers though- it just won't work, since those lines will want to blend with my colored area. You could color over this with colored pencils or something though. Embosing won't work, because you'd be sticking embossing powder over the whole damp area, not just the lines.