I absolutely love playing with inks and colour! It is particularly nice when you can combine this with die cutting and stamping. I adore stamping! A huge inspiration for me is the designer Sheena Douglass from Crafter’s Companion. She designs stamps, stencils, masks and dies and brings us loads of messy colourful inky techniques. I can loose myself for hours experimenting with inks and misters and all the wonderful mica products. Hence the name inkybliss!
This card was inspired by a piece in one of my favourite magazines,’ Craft Stamper for the mixed media artist’. This is my take on the piece. I’ve added to my version ‘frantage embossing’- another creative indulgence! More of that later. What the magazine introduced to me was the wonderful Brusho powders. These are pure pigments that you spritz with water to create amazing coloured backgrounds.
Here is a rough guide to what you will need:
- Water colour card and cream DL card blank;
- Paint brush
- Water in a mister bottle
- Sheena Douglass stamps and matching dies- The country life, from the perfect partner range;
- Sheena Douglass cloud stencil;
- Colour craft Brusho in yellow and Prussian blue;
- Spampendous frontage- gold halo glitter mix and antique pink embossing powder;
- Distress inks in squeezed lemonade and mowed lawn;
- A selection of alcohol markers in pinks and purples. I used the spectrum noir range from Crafters Companion;
- Adhesive;
- White posa marker;
- Clear embossing powder and versa mark ink;
- Heat gun;
- Black ink.
To begin, take the water colour card and cloud stencil. Wipe the card with an anti static bag if you have one. Towards the top of the page ink through the stencil with the versa mark clear ink. Remove the stencil sprinkle white clear embossing powder and heat with heat gun. This creates a resist for the inks later. Then the magic!
Sprinkle a tiny amount of the blue brusho powder towards the top and some yellow lower on the page.Spritz with the water mister and watch the pigment mix. You should have grades of blue towards the top and then gradually changing to green at the bottom.
You can achieve some really cool effects. Use your paint brush to spread if necessary and spritz again for water colour fading. If the clouds loose their whiteness, use the white paint pen to refresh.
When you have achieved the desired effect dry off with a heat gun. Then randomly spread some versa mark ink along the bottom of the page where it is green. Sprinkle the frantage embossing powders lightly over the top and heat with the heat gun. This creates a sparkly hazy look. Using the green distress ink and the stamp place some faded flowers in the background, a bit like a meadow effect.
Stamp the flowers on a separate piece of water colour paper and die cut using an die cutting machine. Take the alcohol markers and colour over the top. I outlined mine in yellow too to suggest sunshine. Sheena has also provided a die for the individual flowers. Die cut a few of these, colour and stamp and stick on top. Then arrange the flowers and stick to the art work.
Finally the birds can be stamped in black in in the sky.
If they are not quite dark enough you can go over them with a black marker.
Finished! There’s no reason why these techniques couldn’t be used with all sorts of dies and stamps. So much choice… not enough time!