ACETATE FLOWER

FOILING - THREE VARIATIONS USING CUTTING DIES

FOILING FELT

HEAT EMBOSSING WOODEN SHAPES

HEAT EMBOSSING WITH STENCILS

HEAT EMBOSSED SPLIT PINS (BRADS)

TEXTURE PASTE, COLOUR AND GLITTER

GOLD INK VINTAGE

ERASER STAMPED BACKGROUND

TWO EXAMPLES OF ERASER BACKGROUNDS

Sometimes I just want to add a little bit of a feature in the background without compounding the busyness of the rest of the project.

A really easy way to do this is to ink up the side of an eraser and use it as a stamp to add colour. 

The example on the right uses three shades of overlapping brown - I've overdone it a bit here, to make the point, and would chose more subtle colours for a "real" card.  The silver behind the stamped rope on the first  card front is more the go.

Of course, its just a matter of what you like.  I often just use the eraser technique to add a single panel of a subtle colour (use Versamark) behind a stamped image.

DOUBLE WATERCOLOUR IMAGES WITH DISTRESS INKSDist

Under-colouring with distress inks.

This is a super-easy way to add colour to a stamped image, although its one of those techniques that people either love......or don't.  I'm in the former category,, and use this a bit, especially with some of my more solid stamps, such as these ones from Darkroom Door.

You just wet a piece of thickish (ideally water colour) paper, ink up your stamp with distress inks and stamp them down onto the wet page,  Leave them there for a little while so that the colours soak and spread.

Dry the page (either with a craft heat gun) or leave it to dry naturally, then re-ink your stamp with black ink (I used Versafine), and stamp on top of the blurry coloured image to add back the detail.

That's pretty much it!

TEA THEMED CARD.

I used a cut-out card from Regal Craft Cards to make this card, which I won't be giving to other because it didn't quite work out the way I wanted, for a variety of reasons.  Still, one always learns at least as much from mistakes as success, so lets have a look at what went right and what didn't.

The success was the mottled background paper.  I had some large leafed loose vanilla tea, which I enjoyed as a cuppa, and then spread the leaves over a piece of plain white card, leaving it overnight to dry.  The leaves died the card this great mottled brown but also gave it a lovely vanilla scent that lasted for a couple of months!

The issues arose with the teacup.  I stamped it on thick cardboard with a dye ink, and then heat embossed it with three layers of ultra thick clear embossing powder.  This is where it all went astray.  Firstly, the Versamark and molten embossing powder caused the stamped writing to run just a little.  This wasn't too bad in this context but could cause problems if a crisp image was important.  Next time I will try heat set pigment ink and if this doesn't work, Staz-On.

The next problem was the embossing, even although the cardboard was quite thick, it wasn't thick enough for the layers of embossing powder and the heating involved and it curled quite badly.  Again, as I wanted to crack the powder it didn't matter too much, and I could straighten it out however it wasn't ideal, and next time I'll die cut two or three thick cups and glue them together to make an ultra-thick base.

Lastly, I wanted to crack the embossing powder and ink over it with sepia ink .  I tried to do this by bending the teacup shape backwards and forwards with the results that some pieces came parially off the page, whilst others absolutely refused to break!  When I inked it, instead of sitting in subtle cracks the ink leaked under the broken edges and ended up making the whole thing look a bit more smudgy than cracked.  So......next time I might try the freezer method, and a thicker ink (I used distress ink).

Next time might be a while though......I'll have to work up to it!  On the bright side, I do love the little teacup and tea bag dies from Paper Roses, and I'll definitely put them to good use on other projects.

RESIST STAMPING

STAMPING RESIST

We used to do something very similar to this with crayons in grade three, but this is the "grown up" version.

Colour the base paper with permanent markers - I've used really bright colours and a swirly pattern just to make the sample obvious, but you can be more subtle.

Stamp on an image (one with lots of solid area is most effective, this one is from G45) using embossing or watermark ink (I used Versamark) and heat emboss using clear powder.

Go over the whole thing with a dark dye ink , and then gently wipe off the embossed areas to reveal the colour beneath.

ALUMINIUM FOIL EMBOSS WITH NAILPOLISH HIGHIGHTS

BANDANA STAMPING

BANDANNA STAMPING

This is not my idea but there are so many examples on-line that I don't know who to thank for the technique.   Have a look and you will find many better examples that this so thank you to everyone who has posted their work for us to enjoy and be inspired by.

Begin with a watercolour background.  (I've used my favourite smooshed distress inks applied with an acrylic block - see the last post).

Stamp on some images with blank ink.  I arranged them on a single block and stamped them all at one time so I could do a test run first.  Next just colour in a section or two of the stamps with white gel pen and add a few lines and  a little dotted border here and there. No skill needed for quite an effective result.  This is one example which looks better in reality, and is fine as a sample.  I'll definitely be giving it a go a little more carefully (to get the dots more evenly sized and placed, and the straight lines straight etc) in the future.

ACRYLIC BLOCK DISTRESS INK BACKGROUND

ACRYLIC BLOCK "PRINT" BACKGROUND

One of my very favourite ways to make a watercolour background (because its easy and almost always looks good) is to ink up an acrylic stamping block with distress inks, spritz on a tiny bit of water and then "print" it onto dampened paper.

I have done a post about this before, but thought this might be worth a view as it shows how easily one can suggest sunset scene via colour selection and an appropriate silhouette stamp.

You obviously won't get precise colour placement with this technique but its worth spending a little time thinking about the placement of  the various inks on your block to correspond to your stamp e.g. sand, sea and sky; flowers, leaves container etc.

(The stamp is from Darkroom Door)