IN LOVE WITH BOKEH

bokeh

noun

a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image 

Bokeh is a favorite photographic technique of mine--one that I have recently practiced.  I have been trying to learn to use our "big" camera, and my son recently challenged me to take a photo of our lighted sprigs with one bulb in focus while the others were blurred.  I took a lot of photos before I finally succeeded with the one above.  Hopefully, you will notice the one bulb that is in focus.  ;-)  Below is another example of bokeh using the same lighted sprigs.  My son took this project photo for me a couple of months ago so I could post it to my blog. 

I finally tried the bokeh stamping technique this weekend.  Since I needed masculine colors for this card, I used Pool Party, Wild Wasabi, and Bermuda Bay.  It's not the best background that I've created, but I did like the end result--the finished card.  This card features the following Stampin' Up! products:  Celebrate Today stamp set, Balloon Framelits dies, Pool Party and Whisper White card stock, twine, Stampin' Dimensionals, rhinestone jewel, and Whisper White Craft ink.  And yes, I used the same lighted sprigs to present a bokeh background for the photo of my stamped bokeh background.

To create the background, I sponged the three ink colors onto watercolor paper.  I created a stencil (photo below) from a Window Sheet of die-cut circles (using the four smallest Circles Collection Framelits dies), and sponged Whisper White Craft ink onto the paper, alternating and overlapping the assorted sizes of circles on my stencil.  After the white ink was dry, I used a Sponge Dauber to apply a few small circles of white ink, and then used the white gel pen to add just a couple of tiny white dots.

It's not necessary to designate a top for the stencil.  I wrote on mine so that I would be sure to apply the ink on one side only to avoid accidentally transferring ink to my project.  I thought it would also be helpful to have the stencil labeled in case it is used in class and passed around.