Challenge: Anything Goes

Last week, the Wednesday Simon Says Stamp challenge was the wide open theme of "Anything Goes". I had just made a card  that I thought would work for this challenge, but today is the first chance I've had to post it.

This came about as a result of an experiment. I had seen a technique that I thought looked interesting and wanted to give it a try.

I took some off-white cardstock and, using a brayer, layered Distress Ink in Mustard Seed and Barn Door. I then spread on some acrylic medium by Golden called Coarse Garnet Gel. If you look closely, you can see bumpy spots, which are the grit embedded  in this gel. The grit is a dark red color, while the body of the medium is clear. I had no idea how this would turn out, but I thought it was very interesting. The colors of the inks stayed true and were even intensified, and the grit in the gel added texture. I left it to dry overnight - the next morning it was dry but the cardstock was rather flexible. I wasn't sure what to do with it at that point, but I decided to make a card background with it. I trimmed a little off the edges and adhered it to a green card base.

The pear stamp is an oldie from A Stamp in the Hand. It's a very solid image with little detail, so it works well for blending colors. I used several Distress Ink colors in the mini pads and then spritzed it with water. I stamped onto some watercolor paper and added a few splotches of color with watered down ink.

I trimmed it pretty close, tearing the bottom edge of the panel and mounted it onto some dark brown paper. I added some foam adhesive (3M) to the back and set it aside for a moment. I cut a length of twine and looped it around my fingers, then placed it on the card front with the foam mounted pear panel on top. The foam adhesive holds the twine in place.

The "happy birthday" sentiment is from Altenew's Label Love (I'm using that set a lot lately!). I've discovered that these stamps work best for me if I stamp on a surface with a little give, like a pad of paper. I used a teeny bit of foam adhesive on the far right side of the sentiment strip to bring it up to the level of the pear panel. Otherwise it would have been hanging in mid-air and probably would have gotten bent out of shape.

I thought the card still needed a little something, so I found a dark brown button and threaded it with a little gold metallic thread, then glued it on with some Glossy Accents.

This next card has nothing to do with the challenge, but it's so similar I thought I'd include it. The background was made with a checkerboard stamp, inked with Distress Ink and misted with water. It was stamped on some watercolor paper and trimmed a little smaller than the card base.

The pear was done exactly the same as the previous card and also mounted on dark brown paper. I wrapped some twine around the checkerboard panel, and added a die cut "p" just for fun.

That's it for today. I hope your week is off to a good start!

Immi

Make it Take it Challenge: October

So, I'm a little late joining this party, but I'm going to get this squeezed in by the deadline. This is a challenge from Craft Stamper Magazine. I'm not very familiar with it, but discovered it because it was mentioned on a blog I was reading. Every month they issue a new challenge - this month, participants are to use the technique of multi-color stamping. This involves using mulitple colors of ink, paint, etc. on an image.

Here's my card:

I pulled out a leaf stamp by Rubber Nature ArtStamps and started adding various colors of orange and brown Distress inks. After giving it a light misting of water, I stamped that on a cardstock panel. Then I stamped it again on another, lightweight piece of paper and cut it out to make a mask. I put the mask over my leaf, and inked up an old favorite script stamp from Stampin' Up! in various shades of green Distress inks. I stamped the script on top of the masked leaf, and then removed the mask. This left the leaf image untouched, with the script all around it.

So far, so good. I trimmed the panel down a little, and mounted it to some dark brown paper which was product packaging I'd saved. I pulled out some multi-hued thread and wrapped it around the top of the panel several times, securing it to the back with tape.

Next I pulled out Altenew's Label Love set and chose "thank you". I tried several brown inks before settling on a very old Ancient Page ink in Close to Cocoa (Stampin' Up!). I poured clear embossing powder over that and heat set it. I trimmed it close to the stamped image, leaving some of the white around it as a frame. I tried that on the card front, but I felt that it needed something dark behind it to provide sufficient contrast to the panel behind it. Brown didn't seem to be the right choice, but I thought a rust color would work. I inked up some paper using Distress Ink in Rusty Hinge, creating my own colored paper. I adhered the sentiment to this and trimmed it, leaving a thin edge of color showing. This was added, and that was that - all done!

Happy crafting!
Immi

More Alcohol Ink Cards

As promised, here are some additional cards I did that utilized alcohol inks. These all use the same cool filmstrip stamp by PaperArtsy. They all have a similar feel with lots of fun layers of miscellaneous papers. All three also feature the same "missing you" stamp from Tim Holtz.

The first card doesn't have much stamping - only the sentiment and the filmstrip image. The rest of the color and interest comes from layers of paper.

The next card also has some stamping along the purple cardstock (a border stamp - unknown) and along the gold cardstock to the left (Technique Tuesday). The panel of text is from an old book.

Finally, the last card also has limited stamping - again, the filmstrip and the sentiment. The alcohol ink background makes a stronger statement here. 

That's it for now. I enjoyed making these and sharing them with you.

Happy crafting!

Immi

Alcohol Ink Cards

Whew! I can't believe that it's already September. Looking back, I see that it was July since I last posted, but in my defense I've had a lot of great family stuff going on.

I thought I'd share some cards I did using alcohol inks. I don't get these out very often - they can be messy, and I am limited in the techniques I've learned for them. I do love the cool backgrounds that can be created with them, so here goes.

This first card has a bright and bold background created with alcohol inks on glossy cardstock (all the cards I'll show use glossy cardstock). The cute little partygoers is a stamp from Prima. The "happy birthday" is from a Tim Holtz set. I did a little simple watercoloring with dye inks on the kiddos' clothing, and mounted the panel on some bright orange cardstock. One of these days, I'm going to run out of that cardstock and I will be so sad. It's actually leftover covers from a planner made one year at the high school where I worked. Rather than toss them in the recycle bin, I brought them home - the color is great and the paper has a cool texture to it.

This next card is more subdued, and I used some metallic mixative along with the inks which gives it a pearlized sheen - very pretty! I stamped a large leaf (Rubber Nature ArtStamps) along with the "hello" sentiment (Jillibean Soup) and mounted both on some gray cardstock I ran through my Sizzix with an embossing folder to give it that raised text.

This card with the sweet bird shows another bright alcohol ink background, but just a little strip of it. I like the way it adds some great color to a black & white stamped image. The card front is stamped with a French script stamp (Hero Arts), a flourish (unknown), and a great scattered dot stamp I've had for years (Stampin' Up!).

One more...

This one might have been better with a less busy background, but I do like the combination of colors. The gorgeous flower arrangement is a stamp by Prickley Pear. I should try coloring it with watercolor someday.

I've got a few more cards that I'll post later - they all feature the same stamp.

Till then,

Immi