One of the first techniques you learn as a stamper is masking.  Masking is making a duplicate image of a stamp on a piece of paper (usually a post it note or product made specifically for masking) and placing it over the original stamped image to “mask” or protect and preserve the original so that you can stamp other images in the background.

Making masks with post-it notes or similar products is fine for many images, but what if you have a detailed image or one that is very intricate?   It can be almost impossible to cut a mask out of paper – at the very least rather time consuming.

 In these cases you may want to use a liquid mask product, such as the Windsor and Newton product shown here.   To apply this product you simply brush the material over your stamped image and allow it to dry.  Be sure to have a container of soapy water handy to place your brushes in.  You do not want the masking fluid to dry on your brush!

 Once the liquid mask is dried, you can stamp, paint or watercolor over it.  When you are finished the mask material is removed by using a soft eraser.  Here is my example of how I used this product.

I stamped the cherry image on white cardstock that had been cut out with a square nestability die –  and I want to airbrush color into the background.  As you can see it is a rather detailed image especially around the stems – making a traditional mask difficult.

Using a small brush I applied the mask product over the images – the longest part is waiting for the mask to dry!  Down here in humid Florida it takes a little longer, so when I am using this technique I usually have other projects to work on while this is drying.  I this case it took about 15 minutes to dry.  It’s kind of hard to see the mask fluid on the image – it’s a bit yellow here.

Once the  masking fluid has dried I placed the paper back into the nestability die and apply light blue ink with an airbrush and copic marker. 

Now that the airbrushing is completed, I remove the mask by using a soft eraser.  In this photo I’ve erased the left hand portion of the mask, while the right portion remains un-erased.

All that is left now is to color in the cherries, add a sentiment and assemble the card!  I mounted the stamped panel on red, then on a black scalloped panel.  Black sheer polka dot ribbon is the only embellishment.  I thought I had some black gingham ribbon, but I must have used it all, and the new striped SU ribbon would also look nice – if I had some – but in the end I kept the card clean and simple and the polka dot ribbon worked well here.

Thanks for stopping by today!