Watercolor + Salt Backgrounds and another BIG Giveaway!

There's a ton of info in this post, so be sure to read all the way to the end for an amazing giveaway plus a chance to play along with the fun technique I'm showcasing today!

I've been having a blast playing around with a watercolor + salt technique this past week. I kind of stumbled across this by accident. We've probably all seen the technique of sprinkling salt over watercolor to create texture - that's nothing new, but what about adding colored salt? That's new, to me at least!

Last week I was preparing a lessons for our girls' club meeting. They had decided it would be fun to have a crafty day, so I found a few little simple crafts online, one of which was making pretty crystals using salt, food coloring, and glue. Well, they looked great, but the morning of our meeting I thought maybe I should try it out...I couldn't get it to work! The salt reacted with the glue and formed a rubbery sticky mess. Clearly it was time to find a plan B. I had already decided I would be tying it in to a Bible lesson on being Salt and Light, so I was tied to the salt idea. So playtime ensued and the results were really fun!

The technique is really simple.

• Create some colored salt by mixing coarse kosher salt with a coloring medium...you can use reinkers, plain old food coloring, or I'm pretty sure liquid watercolors would work too, although I did not try that out. Just add a couple of drops to a small amount of salt and mix it up with a spoon.
• Use a wet-on-wet watercolor technique to watercolor a panel of watercolor paper. To do this, start by wetting the paper with plain water until it's fully saturated (but not sitting with puddles of water), then paint it with your desired colors. To create a galaxy effect I used black and Prussian Blue, but you can experiment with colors (see below)!
• While the paint and paper are still wet, sprinkle the colored salts and watch the magic happen! It's very, very important to do it while it's still wet or you will get very little to no reaction from the salt.
• Let dry completely before brushing away the salt. Use a heat gun or hairdryer to speed up the process, but let the salt work for 2-3 minutes before speeding up the drying process, to get the maximum effect!
• One more tip: quality cotton watercolor paper will give you much, much better results. Arches or Fabriano are two that I have tried with great results.

Here's a quick process video I posted on Instagram!

Depending on the colors you use, you can get lots of different looks. For this galaxy, I painted with black and dark blue watercolors. The colored salts added all of the other color!

I splattered some white ink for extra "stars" and also drew in a few using a white pen. The sentiment is perfect, which is from my Inspired series of stamps.

The galaxy was the first thing that came to mind for this technique, but after that worked so well, I really wanted to try some different colors to see what other effects I could get. For this one I tried to get kind of a sunset look. I started by painting the background with coral and yellow paints, then sprinkled coral, yellow, and purple salts.

I added some mountains to the bottom with some purple watercolor, and just a simple sentiment to finish it off.

I saved my favorite for last! This one started with just an aqua watercolored background, and the rest of the color is from the salt. When it dried, it reminded me of a Monet garden painting! So I pulled out a small brush and some green watercolor and added some stems and leaves to the "flowers". They were already there, the salt already did all of the work for me!

Again, I just added a simple sentiment to finish it off.

All of the sentiments I used on my cards today are from my Inspired series, which was a series I did in 2016 for Papertrey Ink. This brings me to the next big giveaway! I told you we'd be working our way through the years I designed stamps for Papertrey...this giveaway is for all of the sets I designed in 2016!! And that's a lot of stamps! 2016 was a big year for me...it was the year of the Inspired series, Paper Clippings, Dress Up Dolls, What the Doodle, plus several of my other favorites like Tulip Time, Winter Village, and more! Retail value of this giveaway is more than $450.00! 

Please note, the giveaway does not include dies or any kit exclusive stamps or dies, only regular release stamps from 2016.

There are a few ways to enter!

• Leave a comment here, telling me about a technique you'd love to try or learn more about!
• For extra entries, you can create projects using the watercolor + salt technique I shared today. Add them to the Inlinkz list below - one card per link, you can enter as many cards as you'd like, each one will give you an additional entry for the giveaway
• I'm also posting this giveaway on my Instagram account.  For extra chances to win, you can follow the instructions posted there.  

Other details:

• Comments close on Friday, February 1st at midnight CST
• Shipping is included in the giveaway for US residents.  If you are outside of the US and wish to enter, you will be responsible to pay any shipping amount over $14, via Paypal if your name is selected.  I will contact the winner with details.
• One winner total will be chosen from the combined entries here and on Instagram. 
• Winner will be announced here on my blog and on Instagram on Saturday, February 2!

Here is the Inlinkz list for those who want to play along by trying out the Watercolor + Salt technique!

 

Inlinkz Link Party