WIP: Water Col-O-Ring testing

A few weeks ago I received a set of amazing shimmering watercolors I purchased from Cloves and Honey and finally got around playing with them. The Cup of Roses is a stamp I have received from my challenge winnings from STAMPlorations a few months ago and used an embossing resist technique to test the water colors. They are so vibrant and wonderful! The paper I used here is Van Gogh cold pressed 25% cotton water color paper which I purchased at TOWI in Leiden. Such a wonderful local art supply store I frequent and they have hidden gems! I also bought a bunch of old stock Schmincke water colors which I integrated in the palette above. 

I was pleasantly surprised how the paper held up! Minimum buckling/warping, great flow of water and workable time is great as well! By the way, that tin is a DIY watercolor palette. And the tin was given away with a female hygine product! I think I am making so much better use of it now ;) I filled it with different brand watercolors. This size can fit 20 half pans to fill up the tin or 16 half pan and your travel water brush. THIS FITS IN YOUR BACK POCKET OR A SMALL PURSE! I'm trying to find a minimalist way of traveling with art supplies but still with enough colors on hand for our up coming vacation and I think I have found it :)  Super excited to bring it with me on vacay!

Also another paper test I was looking forward to, is this Col-O-Ring by Ana  from the Well Appointed Desk. Initially this booklet is made to use for your ink tests, mainly for fountain pen ink swabs to see how the properties of each ink behave. There are all sorts of great reviews out there and I esp. love this video from my friend Azizah (Gourmet Pens) which shows you how you can make ink swabs and how to use this little booklet for that. Because I have stocked up on Maruman Word Cards when they announced the discontinuation, I thought I could test and try different things with this beautiful hand cut and letter pressed booklet. So I did a watercolor and mixed media test over on my Instagram stories, showed the work in progress of the above little mixed media piece, which I called the 'SS Regina braving the storm'. Made the little boat from vintage postage stamps and I loved that the word Regina was used to indicate our queen back then. The paper holds up to mixed media quite well, I was very impressed to see! So you can try this booklet for different things also, little water color or Mixed Media work and even embroidery (I have used some black embroidery thread between the sails and the paper doesn't rip what I poked it with an embroidery needle!) 

I absolutely LOVED playing around and testing these new products and am happy to support these small business owners whom are providing stellar quality products! 

I'm also happy that the Col-O-Ring is now also accessibly available in the EU at Fontoplumo and thanks again Frank for providing this booklet for review :) 

Sharing these desk shots over at Julia's Stamping Ground for WOYWW#427 - have a look and see more shared desk stories and maybe even share your own work in progress/desk shot to fellow deskers :) Missed you gals and I'll be over for a visit shortly!

Thank you for stopping by and have an awesome day!