<singing a song>
<checking email>
<scrolling through IG>
Oh, there you are! Did you see them? Did you watch a video or two? Aren't watercolor powders, like, the MOST AMAZING thing you have ever seen? I watched one video on them and knew I had to have them. I bought a set of 12 on Amazon for about $32, I think. (They also come in sets of 24 and 8 - I got the 12 because I didn't know how much I would love them. I wish I had gotten the 24!) You need only a miniscule amount each time you use them, so they will last FOREVER. A great crafty investment!
So once I got my powders, I knew I wanted to swatch them. Because many of the colors are actually made up of different color powders, I wanted to be able to see the swatches any time so I'd know if the color I was reaching for would give me the effect I wanted. Here's what my final swatches ended up looking like:
I mean, seriously, how gorgeous are those? Let me walk you through the steps of making the swatches, and you can see them in action.
First off, here's what the containers of powder look like:
Now, they have a pull tab on the side that you can use to separate the top from the container, BUT YOU DO NOT WANT TO OPEN IT!!! I know, it seems weird to not open the container - how do you get the powder out otherwise? Well, I saw on a video by Sandy Allnock (are you following her? You need to - she's amazing!) how she stuck a push pin through the top of the container to make a teeny hole for shaking the powder out, using the pin itself to keep the container sealed when not in use, and I gotta say, it's brilliant. BRILLIANT. I've seen photos on IG of people who have taken the tops off to use their powder - and let's just say that every time they use it, they and everything else within a 5-foot radius is COVERED in watercolor powder. Kids, that is NOT a good crafty investment! Really, all you need is this bitty hole and you are good to go.
So to make my swatches, I first cut 12 pieces of watercolor paper into 3-inch squares and taped them down on my large cutting mat with washi tape. This was to keep the color from running all over the place and also to keep the paper from buckling too much once the water hit it.
Next, I sprinkled a wee bit of powder onto each square, using a different color for each. And when I say a wee bit, I mean a wee bit!
Once the papers were all sprinkled, I used an old travel-sized Chloraseptic mister bottle to spritz water onto each square. (You can buy mister bottles and mini-mister bottles, but why do that when the Chloraseptic bottle worked so well? I will say this, if you choose to use a bottle you already have lying around the house - pick one that sprays in a fairly fine mist. Large droplets and streams will just create puddles and rivulets of water that run off the page.) As soon as the water hits the powder, the magic happens!
This is the leaf green sample. See how there are yellow, green, and even a few blue and orange looking bits in there? That's how the powder is comprised. Now, I could mix the powder and some water together in a bowl and get a solid light green, and use it with a brush like regular watercolors. But for me, the magic in this stuff is how some of the colors stay separated in their component colors when lightly misted. So I wanted my swatches to reflect that.
Here's the whole mat with all 12 swatches misted:
Once misted, I gave the swatches a couple of minutes to partially dry - just enough so that any puddles got pretty well soaked into the paper. Then, because I am impatient, I got out my heat gun and helped them along.
Once all the swatches were dry to the touch, I took the washi tape off, covered the whole thing with a piece of white paper, and laid a few heavy books on top for an hour or so, just to make sure they were dry and to help them flatten out a bit.
Using Sweet Stamp Shop's Mixed Alpha set, I stamped the name of each color at the top of each swatch.
And then I laid them all out and admired them!
And then I punched holes in the corners and put them all on a ring and admired them again!
And finally, I hung them from the craft carousel that lives in the middle of my craft table, so they're in easy reach whenever I want to use the powders and need to see the colors. (I admire them there, too.)
Other than the swatches, I've used these powders to make an amazing card that I unfortunately can't show you right now - cryptic, right?! - but will be featured in an upcoming post. So stay tuned! And meanwhile, have fun playing!!
Kristine :-)
