Inkylicious Galaxy Splatters

A quick post from me before the year ends, I posted on my blog yesterday and on a few facebook groups some cards that I'd made using the Inkylicious Splatter Circle Background Stamp that I got at the NEC back in November, and a few people asked how I did the backgrounds believing them to be complicated. In fact that were easy peasy to do, the stamp does all the hard work for you!

I used distress inks in colour combos I like using, direct from the pads to the stamp and spritzed it with some homemade shimmer spray, but plain old water would do if you don't want a shimmery background. Then using my trusty Tim Holtz Stamping Platform I applied the inky stamp to the card stock and left it sitting on top of the card, pressing it down to make sure the ink and water mixed and swirled together. Once I'd done the coloured part, I repeated the process with Black Soot Distress Ink and then left the panels to dry.

I tried applying the colours in two ways initially putting bands of colour on the stamp with small gaps in-between (leaving gaps prevents your distress ink pads becoming contaminated with darker colours of ink), the water helps the inks to pool in to the gaps so you don't get actual gaps.

The other way was to move around the stamp randomly with a selection of colours and spritz. I like both methods but prefer the random application because it looks more natural to my eye.

You can of course apply more colour I think dripping direct from a re-inker would give more intense results, I'll try doing that soon and see what happens. All of the 6" x 6" panels (that gives you an idea of the stamp size) are now ready for me to turn them into cards, I didn't want the colours to be too dark because the stamped images I want to add will be dark and run the risk of disappearing into the background. It took me all of 30 minutes to create 8 lovely galaxy style backgrounds and that included the time it took to cut the 6" x 6" pieces of card. I can see this stamp making lots of backgrounds in the future and I'm going to try the technique on my Gelli Plates to create some square and rectangular versions. Now to turn these in to cards, I have several ideas, just need to turn them in to physical things!

Christmas Playtime

I can't believe that the holidays are almost over, Si goes back to work on Wednesday, the time has sure flown by, we've been generally chilling out, eaten lots of chocolate, watched a lot of telly and done some gaming, between that and visiting family its been relaxing and fun.

I got lots of lovely crafting goodies as gifts this year, stamps, ink pads, dies, a 5" x 7" Gelli Plate, lots of Tim Holtz goodies including a second tin for my Alcohol Inks, a cover for my Stamping Platform, a Sidekick Machine and some Side Orders to go with it.

My niece and nephews got me some stamps that I can use with the wreath maker templates and fabulous set of fir trees from Inkylicious. Simon bought my a superb light that not only gives me additional light when I'm working, it also has a magnifier on it, making it easier to see what I'm working in if it involves fine details. It can be fixed to the desk with a clip or be stood on a stand like a standard lamp and there is a battery pack that can be attached for use whilst travelling if you don't have access to mains electricity. Given that I now have better light I've re-organised the craft desk to make more space, I've added a set of 4 drawers that now house my Embossing Powders, Altenew Ink Cubes, Mixed Media Paints and a few other things, much easier to gain access to them this way and I've put things I don't use as often in the places the ink cubes etc were.

There is still some clutter and things need to be organised a little better but I'm getting there, I still need to label my Oxide inks and thin out some of the other stuff, some of it will be going to my niece Zoe, for Xmas I got her a small die cutting machine and some basic kit (cardstock, scissors, glue, foam pads etc) and I gave her a lot of stuff I didn't use any more like some Docrafts dies that cut circles and scalloped squares, I have larger sets that include all the same sizes so I don't need them.

I also gave her a lot of inkpads that I didn't use, some I'd bought and NEVER used. She has taken to card making like a duck to water, I got a message from her today saying she'd just finished making a birthday card for her Dad, his birthday is on the 2nd January. As Zoe has embraced card making I'll be giving her more of the stash I no longer use, the kind of things I bought when I was just starting out, the basic training wheel stuff, not that I think I'm a professional now, but I use techniques and products that when I first started card making I didn't think I'd ever be using.

After I'd finished sorting my craft space, I decided to have a little play and dug out some of the stamps and dies that I got from the NEC back in November and made a couple of cards. Both of them have the Inkylicious Splatter background stamp on them, I used Distress inks in various shades of blue and a couple of shades of the new Versa Clair inks I got for Xmas.

I have to say that the Versa Clair 'Nocturne' (black) ink is my new go to black ink, it stamps so crisp and clean, picked up details just like Versafine it is smudge proof after about 50 seconds but you can still emboss it for up to 5 minutes after stamping!

The ink dries very quickly and once dry, stamped images are waterproof and will not smear, the images are light fast and fade resistant and once dry you can use water colour pens without any smearing. I'm getting the rest of the colours for my birthday so when I have all 24 I'll do a post on them by way of a review.  If the inks could be use for alcohol inks as well it would be perfect, I will be using these inks a lot more from now on. Look at how crisp and dark the Nocturne ink has stamped on both these cards.

I have a lot of black ink pads and I've always used Versafine 'Onyx Black' for stamping sentiments, but I think Versa Clair 'Nocturne' will be replacing the Versafine. Both cards I made today are part of my efforts to make some flatter cards that cut down on postage costs and also to challenge myself to try and create a cards with layers of ink rather than layers of paper. That's all from me for now, wishing you all the best for the New Year, I'll be back soon with more wreath template posts and a lot of ink ideas to share with new goodies I want to master, HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at Warts n All Towers xxx