Magic Inking

I learnt this week that Versamark ink has a magic property when used with Hero Arts Shadow inks and its a really cool technique so I thought I'd share it with you.   Here's the finished card and below there is a little photo tutorial showing the magic of how it works!

So it may look I did and emboss resist technique, but it isn't!   For this technique you start with the direct to paper technique with any colour of Hero Arts shadow ink and colour your white paper entirely.

For this card I used Ultra Pink all over and then added a little Orange Soda around the edges straight from the ink pad - don't panic about how much ink you are using, these pads are really juicy and last for ages.

I wanted to create a repeat pattern all over my card that had detail but worked just as an outline, so I opted for one of the gorgeous floral groups from Paper Smooches Blossoming Buds set and inked it up well using Versamark ink.  I started deliberately over the edge to give it a feel of a piece cut from a larger piece.

Now this is where the magic starts - don't ask me to explain the science bit, I'm no Sheldon Cooper, but essentially something in the versamark reacts with the coloured ink and after a few seconds your image starts to magically appear from the background!

It is very pale to begin with so can be a bit tricky to see where  you stamped your last image (if you looks closely I did a bit of a mistake and overlapped a tiny bit but I think I got away with it just!)  If you want to be more precise just wait a couple of minutes in between stamping each image as the longer you leave it the brighter it gets.

So by the time you stamp your last image, the first ones are nice and bright, but leave it overnight and it gets much whiter still as you can see how bright it is on the finished card which I photographed after 24 hours.

To finish it off I added a big bold sentiment from Altenew's Super Script set embossed in gold on a strip of vellum.   I felt the whole piece had a bit of an Indian wedding look so thought this worked well as a sentiment and brought out the gold a little further with a few gold sequin highlights.

I do hope you give this technique a try - it is really quite fun to watch your design appear from the background.  Kids would love it.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• Our February Challenge will go live later this afternoon so make sure you come back and check it out.

• We now have a store Instagram account.  If you want to see some behind the scenes bits from the store then be sure to follow us  

• The parcel that was being investigated by customs cleared last week so Lil' Inker Designs restocks and new releases are now available in store.   Don't forget if you want to find out what's arrived as soon as it gets in, then the best place is our Facebook store as updates go there daily rather than the weekly news here on the blog.  Make the Day Special Stamp Store on Facebook

• We have received a large box of restocks from Lawn Fawn which have now been checked off so will be in store this afternoon.

• Neat and Tangled restocks and a small new release will be here this week.

•  We have the new releases from Wplus9 and Winnie and Walter in transit along with some Mama Elephant restocks.  ETA - early to mid-February customs permitting!

Dotty Hellos

Morning all - I'm filling in today in our vacant slot.   Thanks to everyone who submitted their details for our DT search - we've had A LOT!   So I'll need a few days to go through them all but I'll hopefully announce our new DT member next week.

In the meantime, here's my projects for today.  I've been playing with stencils and big sentiments.

Firstly a really quick and simple hello card using the Hero Arts Bubble Confetti stencil  - simply aligned at an angle across the bottom corner and inked with some distress inks allowing them to soften the higher up the card you go to give a subtle fading background.   Then I used sentiments from Altenew's Super Script - I snipped the "just saying" in half with scissors so I could stamp it either side of the H.   Don't be scared to cut your stamps like this - you get more use out of them and they can easily be put back together on your blocks for stamping as intended ;-)

I then thought that the bubble confetti stencil would also do a great quick bokeh effect.  So for this one I blended a few colours of distress inks and then used the picket fence distress stain to dab though the stencil (this gives a soft white look)   I then turned the stencil 45 degrees and used an opaque white ink for a second layer of dots.   Once dried I used the same Super Script set to create a big bold sentiment in the middle.

Right - that's me for today - I'll be back tomorrow with something completely different!

Persian Carpets

I love most things about Persia - the food, the art and in particular the carpets so I was very excited about the new Altenew stamp set Persian Motifs (well I'm excited that we have ALL the Altenew stamps and was spoilt for choice of which to play with first but this one won!)

I took just one of the images from the set and went about stamping up my own carpet design, embossing each one with a teal embossing powder.  Once I'd finished I just used runny watercolour paint to flood each flower with blue, making some areas wetter than others so they would dry darker.  I filled in the leaves and stems in the same way with a teal colour and then left it to dry.  I used the same technique on the background with a pinky-red as I love the bold colours in Persian carpets.

For the sentiment I went for Super Script, one of their gorgeous sentiment sets, and stamped and embossed it onto a vellum strip so you can still see the design underneath.  As fixing vellum can be difficult when you don't have much space to hide the glue, I have a little trick - when doing panels like this, I score them and fold the edges around the back and then a few dots of glue behind the letters are enough to hold it flat ;-)   I added a strip of gold washi to the base card to balance the design and draw your eye to the gold.

If you got the newsletter yesterday and wanted the new Neat and Tangled "A Long Time Ago" set but clicked the link and found it to be unavailable, it looks like there was an error in the link, as it is actually in stock.

This card would fit our new colour challenge too - don't forget to check it out and play along ;-)  http://makethedayspecialcards.blogspot.co.uk/p/challenges.html