Welcome to the first monthly CTMH Technique Blog Hop in 2016! This is my first time joining this technique team. For this month hop, we are sharing projects that we created using bokeh tehcnique. You should arrive from Michelle’s blog. This blog hop starts from Melissa’s blog.

You probably are already familiar with this technique. Bokeh is actually a photography term which means the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image that produced by a camera lens. The word bokeh is actually from Japanese – boke – that means blur or haze (source Wikipedia). In cardmaking or other papercrafting area, this term is used to create a blury/hazy background out of dots.

There are lots of tutorials you can find on YouTube and Pinterest. But today, I am sharing 3 ways you can create the bokeh background.

First step is to prepare the watercolored background. Cut the Watercolor Paper in sizes you desire and wet them with some clear water and add colors on them using watercolor brush that I picked up from the inkpad lids or you can also use watercolor paint. The color combo for my background is Pomegranate, Honey, Saffron, Ruby and Poppy. You have to make sure the watercolor background is completely dry before the sponging with White Daisy Pigment Ink. I used my Craft Heater to speedy-dry my backgrounds 😉

First way is using stencil. I punched the clear plastic packaging/acetate with circle punches in different sizes. You also can diecut them using circle dies or if you have Cricut or Silhouette will work well too. Or if you happen to have circle stencil, you can use it, too. I made my stencil from clear plastic acetatr packaging, also you can use cardstock.

Using washi tape to hold the stencil on my card so it won’t move around when I sponge the White Daisy Pigment ink. Them I started sponging the White Daisy Pigment Ink on the circles randomly and it is okay to overlap those circles.

Here’s the card I made with this background:

The second way is you can use any circle stamps, even the backside of the circle-textures stamps. I picked some circle stamps in different sizes from the stamp sets I have: Perfect Fit – Halloween, Dizzy Circles, Oodles of Doodles.

I stamped them randomly and also overlapping each other using White Daisy Pigment Ink.

Here’s the finished card. I love those big circles mix with small and medium sizes.

And the third way is using waterdrops directly on the watercolored background using aqua waterbrush and dab it using paper towel.

As you can see on the finished card, I added some circles using White Pigment Ink and dab randomly with sponge dauber to give more “hazy/blurry” look on it. I like how it turned out 🙂

After stamping and sponging with the White Pigment Ink, I always dry it with Craft Heater so they won’t smear when I do the next stamping because pigment ink dries slowly.

For the embellishments and sentiments on these cards I use the new Spring Wishes Stamp Set and Spring Wishes Thin Cuts. I stamped the flowers and leaves using Slate Exclusive Ink Stamp Pad and the sentiments I used Black Exclusive Ink Stamp Pad. Diecutting machine I used is We R Memory Keeper Evolution Advance. I also use Black Cardstock as the mats then I added them on white card bases. Then, I finished my cards using some Sparkle Clear Assortments.

So, those are my cards to share with you today on this blog hop, I hope you like them! Your next hop is Melissa’s blog to see what she had created for you!

Thank You so much for visiting today! Have a fabulous day!