Technique of the Week: Stencils, Oxide Inks and Glitter! by Pam Nelson

This week’s technique uses the very popular Distress Oxide inks.  We continue to explore fun ways to use these inks and I’ve discovered that I love to use them with stencils because they blend so well!

To begin I cut a piece of watercolor paper to 4 ¼” x 5 ½” and colored it with Nuance colors of orange, yellow and hot pink.  I sprayed the paper with lots of water to really dilute the colors.  Then I blotted up the puddles of color with a paper towel.  I wanted the color to be light because I planned to stencil over the top.  I also colored a piece of scrap watercolor paper with these same Nuance colors for the sentiment tag on the front of the card.  I set the papers aside to dry but you could also dry them with a heat tool.

After it was dry, I taped the watercolor paper to my craft sheet and then taped Magenta Stencil TM100, Small Kiss Motif, over the top.  (Sadly this stencil has been discontinued but this technique will work well with lots of different stencils.)  

Using a finger dauber and the Dreamweaver Picasso Stencil and Masking tool, I applied Distress Oxide Cracked Pistachio ink onto the leaves and stems.  I added some Peeled Paint Oxide ink to add some shading to the leaves.  The Picasso tool has lots of curved edges that allow you to mask off parts of the flower while you apply the green ink to the leaves.  

I used Worn Lipstick and Orange Marmalade inks for the flower petals.  I again used the Picasso tool to mask off the leaves while I stenciled the flower petals.  I had originally planned to use Fired Brick instead of the Worn Lipstick but when I saw the final colors in my dried Nuance panel I changed my mind about the ink colors. 

Just for fun (and because I love sparkle on my cards), I sprayed the image lightly with Imagine Crafts Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Spritz.  I set the panel aside to dry but you could also use a heat gun to dry the inked image.

I re-taped the panel to the craft mat, put Magenta Stencil TM61, Circle Halftones, on top and taped it down.  I used a Dreamweaver Palette Knife to apply Dreamweaver Translucent Embossing Paste over the top of the stencil.  Hold the palette knife at a 45-degree angle to your paper as you apply the paste to avoid smearing the ink under your stencil.  Remove the tape from three sides of your stencil, leaving the tape on the top edge.  Lift the stencil up from the bottom edge and the remaining piece of tape will act as a hinge as you lift up the stencil.  Immediately rinse the embossing paste off the stencil. 

While the embossing paste is still wet, put the panel on a piece of wax paper.  Cover the entire piece with Elizabeth Craft Cool Diamond Silk Microfine Glitter. 

Tap off the excess and return it to the jar.  You can either set the panel aside to dry or you can heat it lightly and slowly with a heat gun.  Heating the panel will create small bubbles in the embossing paste as it dries (a technique called Molten Magic which you can read more about in a previous Technique of the Week here.) 

To finish the card I created an A2 size card from yellow card stock, then die cut a panel of green cardstock to 4” x 5 ¼” using the second largest die in the Hero Arts Infinity Nesting Rectangle Dies.  I adhered this to the front of the yellow card.  I cut the stenciled panel to 3 ¾” x 5” using the third largest die from this set.  I love this Hero Arts die set because my panels are always cut straight!

I stamped the Magenta “have a Beautiful day” sentiment on the scrap piece of Nuance with VersaFine Vintage Sepia and embossed with Judikins Clear Embossing powder.  I die cut it with the second smallest tag in the Poppy Stitched Mainstreet Tags (#1268), punched a hole near the top and used a piece of yellow ribbon to add it to the stenciled panel at an angle.  I cut a rectangle piece of fun foam, slightly smaller than the Nuance panel, adhered it to the back of the watercolor panel and then adhered it to the green panel on the card. 

The finished card is also on display at the store.  The photographs don’t really capture all of the sparkle from the glitter.

To create this sample, Oxide inks were applied through the stencil.  I removed the stencil and allowed the ink to dry.  I taped the cleaned stencil back over the image, taped it down and applied Translucent embossing paste through the stencil.  I removed the stencil the applied Elizabeth Craft Cool Diamond glitter over the paste.  After the paste was dry I colored the background by lightly applying Distress Oxide Fade Jeans with a foam applicator.

To create this sample I stamped Magenta Apple Blossom (14.655.P) and the sentiment with Onyx Black VersaFine Ink. I colored the image with watercolor pencils and lightly applied Tumbled Glass Distress ink to parts of the background.  I created a mask for both stamps and placed it over the stamped images then taped Magenta stencil Wavy Texture (TM222) over the top.  I applied Translucent embossing paste over the stencil, then removed the stencil and masks, and applied Elizabeth Craft Cool Diamond Glitter over the paste.

If you like Oxide inks but haven’t purchased them yet, we have a shipment arriving Wednesday, May 31^st.   Drop by the store any time for a demo of this fun product and to reserve yours.  We are also receiving a HUGE order from our main supplier on Wednesday.  We’ll be calling everyone who has pre-orders but we’ll also have lots of fun items arriving with this order.

We just received a very few Hasty Lace Wreath templates. This is one of our most popular templates, and it works up so beautifully! These won't last long. If you don't know how to do Hasty Lace, please come in and see us today (Friday the 26th) or most Tuesdays and Wednesdays for a demo. It's easy and fun!

Hasty Lace Wreath card by Susie Tracy

Art 'n Soul will be closed on Sunday, May 28, and Monday, May 29 in observance of Memorial Day. Please come in and see us on Tuesday the 30th!

Technique of the Week: Distress Oxide "Smooshing" by Dianne Johnson

You may have heard me say that I don't think you can do anything wrong with Distress Oxide inks. Honestly, I like everything I have done with these inks, and I have actually tried to mess it up (such a putting orange onto purple, or yellow onto blue); but nope! Still like what I have gotten. And they are SO MUCH FUN to play with! Oxide inks are a fusion of dye ink and pigment ink. The dye ink soaks into your paper and the pigment ink sits on top. This combination gives your finished product a matte, almost chalky look that is soft and beautiful. Blending Oxide inks is a dream, and they react with water even more interestingly than regular dye based Distress inks.

I have been playing a lot with blending Oxide inks, but I wanted to try smooshing with them. There are different types of what I would call "smooshing", which I would describe as getting wet ink onto your paper in a somewhat messy, unpredictable way. You could put the ink onto acetate or a piece of saran, and apply said inked plastic to your paper...

OR you could put ink on your work surface or craft mat, spray it with water to wet it and drag your paper into it. This second type is what I did for this card.

I assembled some oxide inks to apply to my craft mat: Wilted Violet, Broken China (my current favorite combo); then also Cracked Pistachio and, just to be a rebel, Fossilized Amber.

I started with Wilted Violet and Broken China, and rubbed them firmly onto my craft mat. I spritzed each one with pearly water (mix 2 oz water with 1/4 tsp Perfect Pearls powder).  I love how these inks look when you spray them. They bead up and look opaque. That's because of the pigment in them.

I used a piece of 5.5" x 4.25" Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock for this project, and placed it onto the ink on my mat and picked it up. Beautiful colors! I kept "smooshing" the color from my mat onto the watercolor cardstock, and I just love the combination of these colors.

I then dried the panel and cleaned my craft mat and added the Cracked Pistachio and then the Fossilized Amber colors and sprayed them. I placed my panel into the new colors and "smooshed" it around. The colors beneath did re-activate somewhat, even though I had dried them. The result was that I got a little muddiness, but I actually really liked the effect.

I spritzed some water drops onto the panel and picked up some more of the ink from my mat. I was super happy with the colors on my panel, so I decided to make it into a card.

I cut my panel to 3.75" x 5" using the largest die from the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Stackables die LF768. I chose my Zen Dragonfly from Magenta (44.018.K - and yes, all Magenta stamps come in cling, so just put a "C" in front of the number for cling). I chose the "Have a Beautiful Day" sentiment stamp that I also designed for Magenta (07.969.F). I stamped both of these stamps with Versamark ink, using the MISTI stamping tool.

I embossed the stampings with White Diamond embossing powder from JudiKins. The panel was mounted onto a piece of So Silk Fair Blue cardstock and onto a base card of 110# Neenah Solar White cardstock. I added a few sequins and it was all done.

This was a VERY fast card to make, and you could use this background for almost any kind of card. We have the Zen Dragonfly and the "Have a Beautiful Day" stamps in stock at Art 'n Soul right now; and we will be ordering more of the fabulous Oxide inks very soon. Ranger has been super behind on orders for these inks, but they have really ramped up their production, so we are going to try again to get some in for you.

Thanks for hanging in there with me this far! If you want to see some more step by step photos, please visit my Backporch blog here.

If you have not seen this week's Newsletter, you can link to the latest one here. You can also see our store Calendar here.

Please take the time to scroll through the classes. There is a description and photo with each class. We have some fabulous teachers and classes coming up, including:
Linda Presley from Rosie's Roadshow this weekend!
Helene from Magenta May 21st and 22nd
Sally Penley May 27th
Terry Medaris June 10th (Including trunk show)
Linda Malcom from Lost Coast June 24th
Kae Pea from Rubbermoon July 31st and August 1st
This is a fabulous lineup, and we are working on even more! Please scroll through the class information, or better yet, come into the shop and look at the samples that we have.

If you are interested in taking a class, you can come by, or you can sign up by phone with your credit card. Just call us! Our contact information is at the top of this blog.

Journal Club meets today, May 12th, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  This club meets the second Friday of every month and is open to all skill levels.  If you have been thinking about starting a journal or just want to learn more about this art form, stop in to check it out.  This is a great group where you can relax and work on a project while learning from others.   Even better, it's free!

Technique of the Week: Easy Copic Coloring by Pam Nelson

This week’s technique is quick and easy.  I think it has been around for a while because I mentioned it to a friend and she said that she used to do this technique.  I wanted to share it with you, just in case you haven’t tried it, because it is quick and easy.  Plus I love the vibrant colors you get with the Copic Markers.

When I saw the new Impression Obsession Wallflower Cover A Card stamp (CC285), I knew that I wanted to use it for this technique.  However, any stamp that has a lot of solid surface to it will work great.

To begin, cut a piece of black cardstock to slightly larger than the Cover A Card Stamp.  Use the powder tool to apply anti-static powder over the entire piece of card stock.  Ink the stamp with VersaMark and stamp onto the black cardstock.  I love my MISTI for stamping Cover A Card stamps but you can also lay the stamp face up on your craft mat, cover with ink and then lay the cardstock on top.  Lay a piece of copy paper on top and apply even pressure over the entire stamp.  Gently lift the cardstock off the stamp.

Apply white embossing powder over the entire image.  Let your heat gun warm up well before applying heat to your image as this will help to prevent warping of your paper.  After the image has cooled, gently wipe with a soft cloth to remove the excess anti-static powder.

Now for the fun part!  Select the Copic Markers for your coloring.  I recommend avoiding the very dark colors (they cover the image so much that you can’t distinguish the image from the paper) and the very light colors (they don’t show up well.)  For this example I selected a variety of bright colors.  Apply the color using light, brush like strokes over the white embossed images.  For shading, such as on the leaves, apply one color and then lightly add the next color.  

The ink just glides over the surface of the melted embossing powder.  Since you are coloring on a glossy surface you have time to blend your colors before they dry.  If you accidentally apply color off your image onto the cardstock, the “oops” is hidden by the black cardstock.  Continue until the entire image has been colored.

The tip of your Copic Marker may pick up some white color from the embossing powder.  This won’t hurt your markers.  Just color it off on a piece of scrap paper.

The “have a beautiful day” sentiment (07.969.F) is from Magenta’s 2017 Spring Release and was designed by Dianne Johnson.  Stamp it with VersaMark on a scrap of black cardstock.  Emboss with white embossing powder and color the words very lightly with Copic markers.

To complete the card, I used the Hero Infinity Nesting Die set to cut a 4 ¼” x 5 ½” rectangle from Stardream Amethyst paper.  I adhered that to an A2 white card base.  I used the next smaller die to cut a 4” x 5 ¼” rectangle from the stamped image and adhered that to the card.  Use the smaller dies to cut a 1 ¼” x 2 ½” piece of Stardream Amethyst and cut the sentiment using the 1” x 2 ¼” die.  I love using these nesting dies for this purpose because you get straight cuts every time!

Adhere the sentiment to the amethyst cardstock.  Add a piece of fun foam to the back and adhere to the card.  For the last step, I sprayed the entire card lightly with Imagine Sparkle Sheer Shimmer Spritz Spray to add just a bit of shine to the card. 

Are you looking for another way to use your Copic Markers?  I’m not a great “Copic Colorer” but this technique was lots of fun.  It was also very quick and easy.  You could easily stamp and emboss several images and then just color them all at once.  I hope you will give this technique a try.  Art 'n Soul has great stamps that will work well for this technique!