Inky Backgrounds

Apologies for the late post today - we woke to an overnight dishwasher disaster all over the kitchen floor this morning so we've been mopping rather than crafting this morning!

I've been having a play with options for inking backgrounds today using a couple of different inks so you can see a little better how they compare.

Firstly - I made a run rainbow birthday card using Distress Oxides and layered some stamping over the top in the same ink colours.

I simply blended stripes down my top fold dove white card using Candied Apple, Spiced Marmelade, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron, Mermaid Lagoon and Wilted Violet, blended each into the other in between.   I sprayed with water for a light mist and then added some larger drops of water for the oxidised effect.  I then stamped using the same inks filling the background with streamers and confetti from the very useful little Cheeky Birthday stamp from Hero Arts and finished with a stacked Big Happy Birthday die cut from Mama Elephant.

Then to compare the oxides to the new Reactive Inks from Hero Arts, I made a quick thank you card.  I picked 3 shades and did stripes again, starting with Fog, then Pool Party and Blue Raspberry at the top.  Again sprayed and splattered with water and left to dry.  These inks are a hybrid dye/pigment similar to oxides but without the oxide effect but they do still react with water so the look is similar.  I found them a bit wetter than an oxide and because of that found it a little easier to get a softer blend.  Less colours to choose from (15 currently whereas there are 60 oxides) but there are some shades that could fill gaps in between oxides if you want to use both together.

I turned it into card with the addition of a grey die cut hilly thanks from  Mama Elephant.

When I was cleaning my blending tools (I spray them with clean water and dry on kitchen paper) I noticed the colour looked pretty so decided to have a play, and managed a really quick watercolour style background for another card (I just grabbed a card not watercolour paper so it warped a bit but the effect would be awesome on the right cardstock)

The top here is the pool party shade, then Berry Smoothie and Thistle at the bottom - all just one dunk on the pad with the blender, sprayed with water, most of the colour dabbed off and a quick stroke across the card.  This time finished with the Hilly Hello die cut again from Mama Elephant this time cut from White Glitter card - Pixie Dust from Lawn Fawn.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

I'm still working on finishing adding all the new Hero Arts items - it takes around 10 minutes to load each item to store and I do it around packing orders which always get priority, and as we've got lots of other stuff going on which is taking me out of the office for meetings etc then I am just desperately playing catch up.  I'll get it done just as quickly as I can.

We're expecting the following deliveries this week:

• Wplus9's new release plus restocks
• Sugar Pea Designs latest release and "most" restocks but some wait listed items are on back order still as they haven't got them left in stock themselves.
• Hopefully Altenews latest release plus restocks but I am still waiting on confirmation that they are ready to ship it.

• Lil' Inker Designs have a new release this week but we are not able to order that in advance so will have that hopefully next week instead.

We will be closed on 3rd July for my Mum's funeral so nothing will ship that day and we will not be answering correspondence.  Thanks for your patience.

Tara

Subtle Colour Challenge

We're sponsoring Less Is More Challenge blog again this month so I thought I would use their fun challenge as my inspiration for today's post - the challenge is to use subtle colours on a CAS card.

I decided to have a play with watercolour for my "subtle" colour and allow it to run down the london skyscape die by SugarPea Designs to give the appearance of subtle reflections on the Thames.   I just die cut the scape using water colour paper, made it all very wet with a water spray and then dropped the rainbow colours on using watercolour paints.

I blended the background of the base card with weathered wood oxide ink and then lightly sprayed that too and dabbed it dry to remove the colour and give a feel of rain to match the brighter day sentiment which comes from Avery Elle's Shine Bright stamp along with the birds I added to the sky.   I emphasised the rain with little diagonal slashes with a white pencil.

It's a really fun technique to make a CAS card and its really quick too!   Hope  you will be inspired to give it a try and do have a go at interpreting the subtle colour theme over at Less is More too!

Tara

A positivity canvas

As the weather here was awful yesterday, the best place to be was in my craft room getting messy and watching Queer Eye on netflix so I set about making a mixed media positivity canvas as a gift for a friend which took me around 4 episodes...

I started with a 7 x 5 inch stretched canvas and blended oxide inks straight onto it (I am not a mixed media expert, so although I know conventional wisdom is to prep the canvas first, I don't find I need to)   I used Scattered Straw, Fossilised Amber,  Dried Marigold and Crushed Olive to get a blend from top to bottom and then used a little weathered wood and pine needles to "dirty" it up a little in places before spritzing with water for a little reaction here and there.

The next step was to add some paste detail to the top right corner using one of Tim Holtz's mixed media #2 dies to create a stencil from a scrap of card (you can use acetate to make a stencil to keep and reuse) and gluing it down with stick and spray repositional adhesive before spreading seaspray green tonic mousse through and allowing it to dry.

Whilst that was drying I die cut all my elements to decorate the front.  As one of the sentiments I used is about time, I wanted to feature the fabulous Timekeeper clock die also by Tim Holtz for Sizzix.  This is a steel rule die so can cut really thick material like leather or as I used here super thick cardboard.  I cut two and glued them together for added dimension and then used a couple of shades of green and teal wow embossing powders and Hero arts Copper for that verdigris look.

The floral stems come from the Wild Flowers #2 die set again another one of Tim's, and I die cut them from 3 shades of card - Sage Leaf by Lawn Fawn, and then Pesto and Palm from Hero Arts.  I used some more wow embossing powders to add hints of sparkle in places.

The sentiments were all taken from the Reason to Smile Stamp Set from Altenew, the ones at the bottom were white embossed onto Hero Arts Adriatic cardstock, the one inside the clock was embossed using the "verdigris" combo onto vellum.

Once the paste was dry, I added a little stamping to add some texture to the background using the ocean waves background from Hero Arts (sorry this is currently out of stock but will be back as soon as possible, but any simple pattern would work)   The technique here is to just add random "bits" of stamping rather than the whole image just to add some detail and texture.

My normal style is very CAS, so doing something like this really pushes me out of my comfort zone but I really had fun tyring to make something I was happy with (even if I did ruin my desk by dropping embossed pieces on it upside down!)  I just kept adding things and taking them away and taking photos to remember what I had put where before I fixed it all with strong glue in the end.   Hopefully my friend will like it and the positivity reminders will do their trick.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

This week we will have:

• Lil' Inker Designs latest release and restocks
• Altenew's latest release
• Lawn Fawn restocks
• Echo Park and Carta Bella papers and stencils and embellishments

For European customers worried about Brexit - I am sorry but there is still no concrete news to give you.  The UK Government have voted this week to reject the "divorce deal" that is on the table from the EU which left us with "leave without a deal" or "another referendum" both of which were also rejected so currently we have no clue what will happen on the 29th March and cannot do any planning for it!!!   It's a case of watch this space still I'm afraid.......

Laters

Tara