Ink 'Painted' Christmas Card

I discovered this site for stampscapes a while back.  While I love their stuff, their shipping charges are too much for me, so before taking the plunge and buying a bunch of stamps (to justify the shipping fee) I tried their paper saturation / 'painting' techniques to make a card and then use stamps I already own.

I used make up sponges to apply the many layers of ink on glossy paper, then stamped over it all with the closest silhouette stamps I had.  It didn't quite work (and I tried using a marker to increase the silhouettes, which was a mistake - the lines show up darker than the stamp ink, so it looks strange) but I can see myself trying this again when I have more time.  I haven't mounted it on cardstock yet, but I except I'll do so on black or dark blue.

Birthday Butterfly and Flower Card

This card only uses a bit of ink painting, but I managed to do it without any lines.  Just nicely blended ink.

I like the effect you get with Spellbinders dies, but don't own any (yet).  To get the effect - the uninked rim around my circle - I cut shapes with my silhouette out of acetate that are just a bit smaller than the circles/shapes I cut out from cardstock.  When I layer the acetate outline over my cardstock, I can ink inside the circle and still have a crisp white outline.  You don't get the embossing on the outer edge that the Spellbinders die would give you, unfortunately, but it still looks pretty good.  :)

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamps: Close to my Heart - Delight, Kaiser Craft - Birthday Sentiments
Ink: Memento
Punch: EK Success Lily Pad 2-in-1 edger punch
Hot-set rhinestones

Ink Sponges

Part of my quest to learn how to ink paint was figuring out if the sponges I was using (some face make-up sponges I had lying around and sponges that came as filler with a set of hot-fix rhinestones) were appropriate for this type of project.

The black filler sponges came square and I tried rounding them so they wouldn't leave streak marks.  After trying - unsuccessfully - to reproduce the ink painting I've seen on other sites I decided to buy actual ink daubers (craft sponges designed for this purpose).  I wanted to see if the daubers were special in some way.  The sponge on the daubers is a cross between the two sponges I was already using.  It's got small pores and is quite soft to the touch as well as having a rounded top.

With regards to ink painting however, I had the same problems - streaking and hard edges.  Obviously my problem was not the sponges then (or not just the sponges).  So I tried something else.  I tried not putting as much ink on the sponges.  Voila!  Apparently I was over inking the sponges, making their first contact with paper too ink heavy, so they smeared and left firm lines.

In addition to the over inking, I suspect you're also supposed to leave that first smear on whatever mask you're using with your project (for land/sun/landscape background), then smear a smaller amount from there onto your project.  I'll have to practice with these ideas, but my first attempt with this knowledge turned out quite good.  I'll post that card tomorrow. :)

Fairy Card 2

Following soon after making yesterday's card, I tried the same design again.  This time, instead of doing the background first, I stamped and coloured the image.  I then made a mask of it and covered my image, allowing me to stamp leaves and sponge ink over the background without interfering with my fairy.  I also masked where I wanted the sentiment, though I don't think I'd do that again, as having the background stop solidly around the words looks kind of odd.

Again, I used a clear glitter pen to make the wings shine.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamp: Make It Crafty - Fairy Celandine; Inkadinkado - Leaves; Whiff of Joy - Magical Wishes Sentiments
Ink: Memento
Markers: Crayola
Clear Copic Atyou Spica Glitter Pen

Fairy Card 1

This card was an experiment in a couple of things.  I improved all of them in the second card I did, which I'll post tomorrow.

I started the card by 'ink painting' the background.  That meant taking my sponges and making a radiating pattern from the center where I intended to stamp the fairy.  I used blue and green ink, then some gold to give it a bit of sparkle.  The obvious error here is that I inked into the fairy's skin (most notably her face).  I coloured her with markers, used a glitter pen to give her wings some shine, and added a few heat set gems.  To finish, I punched the bottom.

While I wasn't entirely happy with the ink background (it smeared well in some areas and made splotches in others) on the whole I did like the card.

Supplies:

Cardstock: Recollections

Stamp: Make it Crafty - Fairy Celandine

Ink: Memento, Encore Ultimate Metallic

Markers: Crayola

Punch: EK Tools - Dotted Scallop Edger 

glitter pen

hot fix gems (I own these from several companies, so I'm not saying which I used, as I'm not sure)

Embossed Birthday Card

I wanted to try the heat embossed and then coloured over and wiped clean cards I've seen on the net.  I stamped and heat embossed the design on the raised oval, with some intentional overlap on the card base.  I also stamped and embossed my sentiment.  Either I'm pressing too hard with my sentiment stamps (a real possibility as I'm used to having them not stamp the entire image) or my embossing powder was too thick, because towards the end it's hard to read.  To fix that (not seen in this photo) I over wrote the sentiment with a gold gel pen.  That also makes the sentiment pop more.

As for the ink painting, well again it's not my favourite, though it does bring out the embossed image...

Finally I attached the oval with pop dots and punched the edge of the card.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamps: Inkadinkado - Floral Flourishes; Kaiser Craft - Birthday
Embossing powder
Ink: Memento
Punch: Martha Stewart Arch Lattice

Music and Lace

The next card I tried ink painting a background for was this one:

I was also trying to see how well I could line up the lace stamps (then covered the join).  

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this card...

Supplies:

Cardstock: Recollections

Stamps: Close to My Heart - Sweet Moments; Inkadinkado - Music Notes

Punch: Martha Stewart - Arch Lattice

Spring Tree Card

The same day I did yesterday's Baby, It's Cold Outside card, I did this spring tree card.

I 'ink painted' the grass.  It worked out pretty well, I think, giving some definition to the hills.  This is a card where the splotchiness of my job actually worked.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamp: Technique Tuesday - Treemendous
Ink: Memento, Crayola Markers

Baby, It's Cold Outside

The next card I tried 'ink painting' on was a winter card using two new products, Technique Tuesday's Treemendous stamp and a liquid applique pen (for fake snow).

I stamped the ground, the tree, the snowman, bulbs and snowflakes.  Then I used a make-up brush and light blue ink to do the snowy sky.  It's much more splotchy than I would have liked, though it does give a kind of blizzard effect.

The applique goes on as a thin line.  You're supposed to let it rest for a few hours, after which you use a heat gun on it.  The lines puff up into snow!

Still not the ink painting I was going for, but I was learning things (even if I didn't learn them fast enough to apply them to my next few cards).

Oh, and the score lines on the sides are because I bought a Martha Stewart score pad.  For some reason I kept mistaking where the center score line should be, scoring it wrong and needing to do extra score lines to the sides so it didn't look like a mistake. :)  I did score lines on the right side of this card to give it a sense of symmetry.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamp: Technique Tuesday - Treemendous
Ink: Memento, Crayola markers
liquid applique

Dinosaur Card

In a strange twist, the first card I really tried the ink 'painting' technique is the only one that's really worked so far.  It's a dinosaur card.  The dinosaur here was the challenge.  I kept forgetting to use an eraser on the stamp, and so got splotchy images when I tried to stamp it.  I also discovered that my Close to my Heart stamps (the first I've purchased) don't seem to like markers as much as they do inks.  On the plus side, I got a nifty two toned dinosaur, which I fussy cut out and pop dotted over the circle.

The trees were from a different CtmH set that didn't mind markers as much.  I taped a piece of acetate over the circle I cut out on my Silhouette (sort of a do it yourself Spellbinders effect) so I'd keep a white edge while inking the inside.  The sky and ground both worked out well, with me adding the dinosaur's shadow at the end in marker (not my smartest move with this card).

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamps: Close to my Heart: Roar, Happy Camper
Ink: Memento
Crayola Markers
pop dots