DIY--Watercolor labels

I know it’s Halloween and I should probably be posting something a little bit more dark and spooky but I have to be honest—I’m not really much of a Halloween person and plus I think I already got all of my Halloween mojo out in this card (click here to view) that I made for the Lawn Fawn blog. I sort of ran out of Halloween ideas really fast this year. I think my holiday creativity usually starts to pick up around Thanksgiving and Christmas but those blog post ideas will have to wait because I have a really fun and easy DIY for you today!

I’m featuring the Lawn Fawn stamp set, Sweater Weather, and this stamp set is such a hit because of all the fun images and sentiments in this set. But, one other great thing about this set is the beautiful and whimsical boarder image provided. This image screams, label—especially because it also has a coordinating die, making it easy to mass produce.

I’m using watercolor paper—you don’t really need any fancy waterpaper for this project but I do have a rather awesome watercolor block that I purchased from Blick in Los Angeles. What I love about this Fluidwatercolor paper is that it’s adhered down on both the top and bottom so keep the edges of the page from warping and making it impossible to paint—and all of you who have already dabbled in the art of watercolor know exactly what I’m talking about. This block only has 15 sheets in it but it’s a great size; and, it’s really thick paper so your watercoloring won’t seep through pages like one might think. I’ve had a question from a few friends about this block asking if the pages are easy to remove and YES they totally are! I love this block so much I can’t go enough good things about it. I think this pad was under $4.00, too.

I’m using a watercolor brush, and a watercolor set that I purchased from Joanns with a 50% off coupon. The original price for this watercolor set was about $8.00—which means I got it dirt cheap. When I first saw it I was thinking to myself, “there’s no way these are going to be that great” because of how cheap they were but I have to say they’re quite impressive. I tried a range of watercolors—even watercolor pencils and I think these might be my fav!

Now that I’ve covered the two main tools used for this project I’m going to get started on the labels. I just had a little cup of to water by my side and started to get my brush really saturated with water. Next I began to pick up color and simply create ovals on my paper—estimating the size they’d need to be to fit in the frame image from the Lawn Fawn stamp set.

Next I simply take some VersaFine ink in onyx black and start stamping the frame image over the abstract ovals—after they’ve dried, of course.

Once I stamped them all out I took my coordinating die and cut them out using my Cuttlebug. Once they’re all cut out you can store them away and save them for a party or you can use them right away like I did with these treat bags. I stamped out a few names on these labels using the Lawn Fawn alphabet stamp set, Violet’s ABCs. I made the treat bag using the awesome goodie bag die by Lawn Fawn—click here to view it. I also used their new paper line which can also be found, here. If you have any questions in regards to this project please feel free to ask! I really hope you enjoyed this easy DIY and if you have an Instagram feel free to DM me your projects! I love when people do that—it makes my day. You can follow me @unifyhandmade.

Have a great weekend!