Alcohol ink

I have been playing all morning. Made a few cards.


This card went together quickly after I figured out what I wanted to do with it. The image is from the stamping class last month that I did not really care for. I am still learning to blend, but am liking what I do a lot better these days. I am sure it just takes lots of practice. I colored in the image with chalks.

I am still playing with the collage technique that I read about. A tutorial can be found on Splitcoaststampers. They are a great resource sight. I actually think that at the moment this is my new favorite technique and will be doing a lot more experimenting with it. It is a very forgiving technique as you can just add something over any mistakes.

This is a new stamp for me. Got it off of Ebay. I love the clay pots, reminds me of the Native American culture that was strong in the mountains of New Mexico where we went often for week end camping trips when I was growing up. I like the crossing over of Native American and Southwestern arts. Hoping to find a stamp of some chile peppers some day. At any rate, this card is nothing like what I had in my head, but I just can't seem to figure out how to have a light touch on the ink when making a background. Maybe some day I will. I have decided that I think the biggest problem is that I have all the wrong colors of ink for what I am wanting to do. After I finished with this card, I was putting everything away and learned that all my colors of ink are water based dyes. Wow, I could have used a little water to blend and soften, had I used a better card stock. I had a lot of fun working it up though. Have no idea what I will do with it, but I am sure that down the road a need will be met with this card.

Another card I made this morning.
I don't have a need for a sympathy card, but for some reason after I got this put together, the card was just telling me it should be a sympathy card, not the spring card I had started out to make. I guess that is how it works though, just start making it and then it takes on a life of it's own. I bought a box of metallic pencils thinking it would be a cool look to the card. Well, I just wasn't impressed. I really like the end result of this card, just think it is the wrong stamp design to really show how great those pencils look.


Okay, now that the finished cards are out of the way, let me show you some backgrounds I made.

There are four separate backgrounds here. I had so much fun playing with my new alcohol inks. I love them, must have more of them. I only bought five colors, a blue, red, purple, yellow, and green. I need a deeper green, a redder red and a darker purple. Not that I would trade the colors I have, they were about all that was in stock when I bought them from the local scrapbook store. I have since learned that at Michael's I can buy the inks, three colors in a set. They are Tim Holtz's brand and I am sure that I will be burning up the gas hoofing it back and forth to Michael's with my coupons to get the sets. I have a couple of ideas in mind for these backgrounds, which since I was playing figured I would make up several at the same time. It is just impossible to make two the same. I have one that didn't make it in the scan, a total of 5 backgrounds. I did figure out very quickly that I will go to JoAnn's and buy a piece of felt and cut my on pads to put on the handle.

When I first learned about this technique, we were told to use glossy card stock or glossy photo paper. We used the photo paper in the class. That gave me an idea, our dollar store has photo size sheets (4 x 6), 25 sheets to the pack age. I figure that is cheap enough, and a great size for card making. I purchased a package of invitation envelopes that are just perfect for a 6 x 4 inch card, or the standard 5 1/2 by 4 1/4. At any rate, the photo papers worked great. The thing I like about the alcohol inks are that they dry pretty much instantly.

Now, look at these two backgrounds.




They are much lighter and a bit softer, but wait until you hear how I did them. I took the alcohol blending solution to clean the pads and then stamped that out. This is the left overs. I think that it is so cool that even the clean up leaves a great background.

I was going through my fair sized stash of paper this afternoon, still didn't find the paper I was looking for, but found it interesting to explore my choices. You know, look at something and think "what on earth was I thinking" but am stuck with now. One set of papers is called "Once Upon A Time" I bought the paper pack, 8x8 paper pack, the 6x4 paper stack, ribbons and letters that coordinate. I still love the colors in the paper, but when looking over the stack think "what a waste" at so many pages that have beautiful artwork but the proportions are way to large. There is absolutely nothing you can do with it that won't take part of it away or cover it up entirely. Guess I can see them a spacer sheets.

I have to go pick up my daughter from skating, had every intention of dropping in the craft store on that side of town, they are having a stamp sale. Had it all figured out, since hubby was off riding with some friends, he won't be home until dark...I thought. He showed up quite a while ago so that trip is off. Guess I will have to sneak over there next week.

Like I said, I have to go play taxi driver, then I will do some more playing.