Praying Distress Oxides

I made three sympathy/praying for you cards last week. For all three cards I used the sentiment from SU set Flourishing Phrases. I love this sentiment because when one is going through a difficult time, or time of loss, it is so powerful to know that people are thinking of them and praying! For this one I used the distress oxide inks on watercolor paper, spritzing with water to bring out the effect. For the flower from Stampers Anonymous, I first used distress crayons to color the flower and then stamped the flower image on top.

 

Rabbit jumps over the moon

Rabbit jumps over the moon

This is my first time playing around with Lavinia stamps and I love them! I've also been trying different techniques with the Distress Oxide inks. 

Here are the steps for these Distress Oxide inks with a giant Moon background. 

I began with watercolor paper and swishes a circle of the squeezed lemonade , laying it on pretty thick.

Then I dabbed on salty ocean, lucky clover, and added some peacock feather over those color in a few different spots.

I heat set the ink and then spritzed with water and heat set again. 

Next I squished the shaded lilac ink directly onto an acrylic block and smooshed that over the moon, and over scattered areas on the rest of the card as well.

I followed the same technique, smashing the broken china and wild honey in different places. Heat set again, and spritzed with water. 

I used a circle template and a gold jelly pen to draw a line outlining the moon.

The beauty of the distress inks is if you don't like it, you can always add more ink, or more water. 

Ranger Flower Oxide Inks

Playing with DISTRESS OXIDE inks

Since this COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have had more time at home. Since youtube contains a multitude of how-to videos, I decided to venture into the world of distress inks, distress oxide inks, and alcohol inks. I thought it was time to stretch my pallet a bit!

I experimented on both watercolor paper and smooth white paper. I found the watercolor paper gives the ink more play and movement and worked best with stencils. Particularly if you wanted to lay the stencil on top of the applied ink and rub off with a damp cloth. The smooth white worked nicely too, but not as much for using a stencil and wiping. I found if I got the smooth white too wet and applied pressure that it rubbed off a little of the paper.

The oxide inks on the above card were applied with the Ranger ink blending foam pads. Then spritzed with water. I stamped the flower from the Tim Holtz set "flower garden" in memento ink, over the oxide inks and added a little more color to the flower with alcohol ink markers. I stamped a background image over the top of the card by inking selected areas in a gray. Added a little texture paste over a dotted stencil, and removed a little ink with the same stencil and a wet paper towel. I used a small bottle cap and dipped in the texture paste mixed with gesso for the round circle.

I also applied the distress oxide inks to the background on this card with the Ranger ink blending foam pads. Then used an aspen tree background stencil to remove some of the ink with a damp paper towel. Stamped the flower in memento black, then added color with alcohol ink markers. Stamped the water drops and music notes. Used a small paint brush dipped in water to remove a little of the color on the water drops, and added white with a gel pen to the top of the water drops.

As you can see, I've had a lot of "social distancing". The results of the inks are never the same! Most of the above samples were the distress oxide inks. The hello you card with the rainbow of green yellow, orange and red was using just distress inks. I smooshed the inks on the ranger ink craft sheet, spritzed with water, and then applied my watercolor cardstock directly on top of the ink. I made 4 cards with the same ink on the craft mat and they all turned out slightly different.

This was one of my favorite cards. I used salty ocean, candied apple, and squeezed lemonade oxide inks. By applying the blue in one corner, the red in the other, and then yellow in the middle and blending outward, it created the rainbow effect. I spritzed a large floral background stamp with water and held the stamp on the image for a minute to remove some of the ink. Then stamped the image on top and color with alcohol markers and added white gel pen in for highlights. Stamped a script stamp in a few small areas.

Well, it has been a few years since I have made a post. As life goes, sometimes the journey takes us in different directions. Now I have had a chance to play around with stamping and cardmaking again. This holiday season I have been playing around with Ranger Alcohol Ink techniques. This technique has made it's way into my Christmas cards.

For this card, I began with the Yupo paper as the paper medium for the alcohol inks. I like to spray the Yupo paper with the alcohol blending solution, and then apply very small dots of about 4 - 5  different colors of the alcohol ink. Then I apply a few more dots of the inks to the blending pad, spray again with the alcohol blending solution, and dab over the background repeatedly until I reach the desired effect. The beauty is that no two backgrounds are ever alike. For this card I used indigo, stonewashed, lettuce, sailboat blue and pitch black alcohol inks.

I incorporated the Peaceful Boughs, Perfectly Plaid, Pine Tree Punch, and Heirloom frames.

Z Fold Snowflakes

I received a Christmas card from my friend Diane Doumitt in Florida that was a beautiful ZFold card. It inspired me to check out this simple technique! The ZFold itself is simple, but all of the miscellaneous details that go into each panel take some time when you do it as a batch of cards!

For the card base, take a 4 1/4" x 11" piece of cardstock - I used NIGHT OF NAVY. Score at 2 3/4" and 5 1/2". For the NIGHT OF NAVY pop out bottom strip, cut a 1 1/2" x 11" strip and score at 2 3/4" and 5 1/2".

The white panels for the main card are two in size 2 5/8" x 4 1/8", TOP NOTE bigZ die. For the pope out strip one size 1 1/4" x 5 1/8", and two size 2 5/8" x 1 1/4". For assembly, only adhere the left half of the long size of the strip to the left side of the background, and adhere only the right side of the scored strip to the side of the card with the TOP NOTE background.

I stamped WHISPER WHITE CS with BLUSHING BRIDE ink using the DIAGONAL STRIPE background stamp and then cut out with the oval from STITCHED SHAPES framelits. I stamped the tree from PEACEFUL PINES stamp set in SILVER metallic ENCORE ink and cut out with PERFECT PINES framelits. All background snowflakes were stamped in SMOKY SLATE using images from CHRISTMAS PINES, SNOWFLAKE SOIREE, AND FLURRY OF WISHES. Both sentiments are from the FLURRY OF WISHES stamp set and were stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink.

The bow and pine branches were cut with PRETTY PINES thinlits using SILVER GLIMMER paper. The pinescones were cut out of BLUSHING BRIDE CS.

Only adhere the bottom part of the oval tree popout to the popout strip!