I've been experimenting again with alcohol inks to create different backgrounds for die cut images.  Today's technique is a lot of fun to do and sort of looks like finger painting though it is done with a brush.  

I started with Alcohol Ink Cardstock and Ranger Alcohol Pearl inks in Sublime (lime green) and Tranquil (blue), just dropping blots of ink onto the coated paper.

I then added drops of blending solution using a brush to spatter it onto the paper.  I do have a cheap paintbrush that I dedicate to using only with blending solution and alcohol inks and keep it in the box with those bottles.

This started the ink moving around and blending the blue and green together.  I wet the brush with more of the blending solution and started drawing lines on the paper.  And look what happened!

Next I auditioned some die cuts to see what I might like against this  stripey background.  I chose the SKETCH FLOWER SPRAY 94248.  I cut it from a linen-textured white cardstock and tried it against the bright green inky background.

I liked this orientation so I chose a white top-folded notecard, cut the inked paper to 4 X 5.25, and adhered it to the notecard using Scor-Tape.  I decided that I wanted color on the blossoms so I popped the flowers out of the spray and inked them with Dandelion and Lady Bug Memento inks.  I glued the leafy spray outline to the background and used Glue Dots to secure the flowers in place.  I then added some white pearls to the flower centers.

Because alcohol inks dry so quickly, this card came together in no time.

Happy Crafting!

Good morning everyone!

Today I have a birthday card for for the guys. It's not very often I make a card that men would appreciate.

To create this card I took a piece of glossy paper and used Archival Ink to stamp the dot border across my paper.  I used a heat tool to completely dry the ink.

Once the ink was dry, I used blue distress inks to fill in the background.  The Archival Ink resists the dye based ink.  

Once I was done inking the cardstock, I trimmed it and matted it on white and black cardstock.  Using foam tape I adhered this to a white card base.

I die cut the word happy from white cardstock and white heat embossed the word birthday on a black cardstock strip, then glued these to the card front.

To finish the card I added some Red Nuvo drops. Pretty simple card, right?  Think of all the color combinations that you can create! 

Have a great day!

 

Supplies

 

CL5236 Bold Friendly Greetings

CL5242 Big and Little Words lear stamp set

94107 Happy Jotted Script craft die

Attach the beautiful Large Double Peony and heat-Mboss it at the same time...it's quick and easy with Scor-Tape!  Hi, Jean Okimoto here with a simple multi-tasking technique that's great for delicate designs like Large Double Peony.  

Paint watercolor paper with teal, purple, blue and violet.  Heat-set it.  Cut it with the 2-¼" x 3-½" Rectangle Basics die.  Cut it with Large Double Peony.  Attach a piece of Scor-tape - slightly larger than the peony, but smaller than the rectangle - to lightweight white cardstock.  This gives the embossing a consistent white background - including the area over the turquoise strip.  

Attach the tape-covered piece behind the cutout on the watercolor paper.  Cut the peony from the white cardstock you'll use for the card.  Place the delicate peony diecut into the cutout, attaching it to the Scor-Tape.  Sprinkle Metallic Orchid MBoss over the exposed adhesive, tap the excess off, then heat it.

Cut turqoise and violet textured cardstock strips of ⅞" x 3-¾" and ½" x 3".  

Stamp the greeting - from the Bold Friendly Greetings Clear Stamp Set - on a white A-2 card with Pearlescent Jade Brilliance.

Assemble the card and add green gem stickers.

Special thanks to everyone from last Sunday's AWESOME BLOSSOM(s) Class at Impress!  Hope you liked the array of flowers we used - large, medium, tiny,  stamped, diecut, watercolored and layered - on our cards.   Thanks too - Ann and Lynne - for helping everyone fill their shopping baskets!  We're having another AWESOME BLOSSOMS class at 1:30 on September 7, following the morning  SIMPLY ASIAN class.

Join us for the COLORS OF CHRISTMAS class at Impress at 1:00 PM this Saturday, August 17th - six cards, two each in traditional colors, winter pastels and jewel tones.  Lots of diecuts, pretty colors, cool techniques and timesaving-tips.

August 17 is also Impress' Annual Holiday Kick-Off - doors open at 10:00 with goodie bags for the first 25 people.  There'll be great new holiday products, demos from 10-12, beautiful displays and festive ideas for all of your holiday projects.

Thanks for stopping by...see you at Impress on Saturday, or here on Outside the Box next week!

Supplies

 

94266 Large Double Peony craft die

30086 Rectangle Basics Set

CL5236 Bold Friendly Greetings

Whale hello everyone!  As you might have guessed, I have a punny nautical card to share today.  It was inspired by Sandy Allnock and her collection of porthole cards.

The background was created with blue, aqua and green alcohol inks on yupo paper.  Spritz it with rubbing alcohol to give it a bubbles texture.  Went in with a Copic Colorless Blender to add even more bubbles. The large whale from Wonderful Whale Frame was die cut three times from mixed media paper and colored with Copics.  

Two circle dies from Circle Basics were then used to die cut from mixed media paper twice and from silver foil paper once.  They were stacked for dimension to form the porthole frame.  The sentiment from Oceanside Typewriter Sentiments was stamped in blue on a mixed media panel, then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

Mounted the panel onto a white card base with fun foam for more dimension and drew in the nails on the silver porthole frame with a black Copic marker to finish.  And that is all.  Thank you for dropping in.  Have a wonderful week.

Supplies

 

94228 Wonderful Whale Frame craft die

CL5240 Oceanside Typewriter Sentiments clear stamp set

30087 Circle Basics Set

Greetings friends.  I hadn't played with vellum in a while, so I thought that I would bring some out for my card today.  Before I used the vellum though, I first needed to color my image.

I started with some 140lb watercolor paper and stamped my Rose Bouquet on top with black Versafine ink.  I next colored the image with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers and a waterbrush:

Vellum is a tricky medium because it looks beautiful, but it is difficult to figure out how to attach it without your glue showing.  For my background vellum, I glued the center part underneath the flowers so that the glue would be hidden.  I left the edges free of adhesive so that you wouldn't see it.  I used really heavy vellum so that the edges didn't curl up like thin weight vellum would have.

For the vellum with my sentiment, I stamped by words using black Memories ink and allowed it to dry.  I added a strip of white behind the sentiment so that you could read it easier, but I didn't adhere the vellum to that white strip.  It simply lays on top of the strip and then I folded the vellum behind the flowers and glued it there so that it would be hidden:

What about you?  Do you use a lot of vellum on your cards?  Have a great day!

 

 

Supplies

 

CL5241 Rose Bouquet clear stamp set

CL5239 Springtime Typewriter Sentiments clear stamp set

I used a painterly alcohol ink technique to create a background for the PERCHED BIRD 94244 on today's card.

how I created the background

• I started with a piece of Alcohol Ink Cardstock (Tim Holtz for Ranger).
• I added some drops of Alcohol Blending Solution (Tim Holtz for Ranger) on the top third or so of the paper.
• Then I added drops of alcohol ink on top of the blending solution (Tim Holtz for Ranger).  I started with Aquamarine.
• I used a paintbrush to move the ink around into horizontal lines of color.  (I have one dedicated for use with alcohol inks only.)  I had to work really quickly and still had some blotchy spots which I kind of liked.  Alcohol inks dry really fast!  

• Continuing to work down the paper, I added more blending solution and Stream ink, overlapping the Aquamarine. 
• For the next section, I added more blending solution and Pesto ink, blending it into the blue layer.
• For the bottom I used Sepia ink blended into the green.
• I added a few more drops of ink where I thought more color was needed and blended it in with the paintbrush.

• Alcohol inks dry very quickly, in just seconds.  And this technique is not as messy as some...only one blue blotch on my thumb!
• I chose a light blue notecard and used Scor-tape to adhere the trimmed 4 X 5.25 panel to it.

For the Perched Bird, I chose another notecard in the same color to die cut it.  I chose not to use the dotted rayed background because I wanted more of the inky colors to show.  I used some white glue to attach it to the alcohol ink background.

All in all, this was a pretty quick card to put together.  Another day when I have a bit more time and more alcohol ink cardstock I plan to make a pile of these backgrounds in a variety of colors to have on hand.

Happy Crafting!

94244

Greetings friends.  If you hadn't heard, August's card challenge is "Some Like it Hot," and features warm colors such as red, orange, and yellow.  I thought I would join in the challenge and share a card I made with some watercolor paints.

Step one was to take 140lb watercolor paper and make watercolor stripes using red, orange, and yellow watercolor paint (I used my Koi watercolors).  Once the lines were painted, I added some gold metallic watercolor paint on top to add an extra bit of interest:

Next, I cut some poppies out of white cardstock and again with my painted background:

Next, I layered the painted poppy behind the white poppy layer so that it had just a hint of color for the center of the flower.

I popped up the white frame onto the card with foam tape and then added my flowers.

Here is a close up of the background and flowers:

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

 

Supplies

 

30060 Pinpoint Square Layers

94251 Layered Poppy craft die

CL5241 Rose Bouquet clear stamp set

Happy Friday everyone!

Today I have a fun birthday card for you which features an easy stamped resist background.

To make the background for this card I placed many rectangle stamps inside my Misti Stamping Tool.  I inked the stamps with Versa Ink and stamped onto white cardstock.  Then I covered the images with white embossing powder and heat set it.  

I used Carved Pumpkin Distress ink and sponged over the embossed images. The embossing resists the ink and the images are revealed.  I misted the paper with plain water and dried it.  Once it was dry I spattered it with black ink.

I trimmed the background and adhered it to a piece of patterned paper and used foam adhesive to glue it to a white card.  

Next I stamped, watercolored and die cut the whale.  Using foam tape I adhered it to my card front.

I stamped and white embossed my sentiment on a strip of black cardstock and glued that to my card under the whale.

To finish the card I just added a few epoxy dots!

I hope you enjoyed today's post and have a great weekend!

 

 

 

 

Supplies

 

CL5200 Whale Hello There clear stamp set

32200 Whale Hello There die set

CL5232 That's Acute Triangle clear stamp set

CL5229 Equal Triangle clear stamp set

CL5236 Bold Friendly Greetings