Hi everyone!
I was thrilled to be asked by Bev and Sam to do a few blog posts for them as a guest CT, and here is my first post!
I’ve been stamping and cardmaking for well over 35 years, but never really did much with stencils. My early experiences with stencils were the sort of basic designs made from a type of oiled card or cut from thin flimsy acetate, such as you’d find in a child’s drawing and painting set, and I really couldn’t see where they would fit into my cardmaking.
However, that all changed when I discovered the gorgeous Inkables from Bee Crafty, and all the possibilities they offer! So for this post I decided to see what I could do just using Inkables, the only stamping to be the sentiments.
For my first card I made a background on mixed media paper (Talens Art Creations) with Dina Wakley gloss sprays. I didn’t want the characteristic speckled effect, though, and I don’t (yet!) have the new Gloss Drops, so having first lightly misted the paper with water, I used a paintbrush to apply the paint. When it was dry, I stencilled on top with a dinkable from Set 12, using a fine tip pen to draw round the outlines in one corner, and colouring through it with waterproof brush pens in the other (water based pens won’t dry on top of the gloss paints). The flower, from Inkables Texture Discs Set 4, was outlined with the fine pen, then I added some extra shading around the outside to make it stand out better. The sentiment from Mixed Messages 1, embossed in white, completed the card.
My second card uses the Botanical Gardens Inkables Big One which I dry embossed on to the purple panel by putting it through my die cutting machine, and then sponged through it with various Distress Oxide inks to make the background for the dragonfly. I drew around the mask part of the Dragonfly Easy Frame (4”) set on to a scrap of Catalyst Paper and cut it out. The Dragonfly sentiment is from the Dragonfly stamp set
My final project is a page from my Grafix Mixed Media Journal. My very first Grafix page, as it happens! I’ve had the journal for quite a long time, and although I loved the idea of it I was quite nervous of actually doing anything with it! The crafter’s advice “have a go, experiment, it’s only a bit of paper” didn’t work here, as the journal pages aren’t paper, they’re plastic! However, I told myself that if I didn’t have a go, I’d have wasted my money buying it anyway, so I bit the bullet and got out my alcohol inks.
I chose the Dura-lar Matte page for my first attempt, as it seemed as though it would be the most forgiving. I dabbed the ink on to the page with felt pieces attached to a blending tool, and found that the colours merged beautifully. Then, having watched a very helpful video by Kate Crane, in which she showed a couple of different techniques, I drew round a few of the motifs from the Botanical Gardens Big One with a Sakura Micron Fineliner pen which is waterproof and writes on plastic. Next (and this was the magic bit!) I removed the ink from the motifs with alcohol ink blending solution (isopropyl alcohol does the same job). I drew sketchily around the flowers with a white Posca pen and added a few details with the Micron pen.
I followed the same method for the two butterflies, which are from the Butterfly Away Inkable and finished with the sentiment from the Doodle Art Dancing Daisy stamp set which I diecut and attached to the page with Distress Collage Medium.
I was quite happy with the page, but felt it really needed something more. The beauty of the Matte Dura-lar is that it is translucent, so I made a second page by cutting one out of a piece of ordinary card, to which I adhered an old book page, sponging lightly over it with Distress Oxide ink. I placed it behind the Dura-lar page, and the book print shows through the areas where the ink was removed, as hopefully you can see in the photo.
I hope that I’ve provided some inspiration for some different ways to use the brilliant Inkables, with (apart from the sentiments) not a stamp in sight!
Thanks for looking!
Here are the links for the products I've used:
Talens Art Creations Mixed Media Paper
Inkables Big Ones Botanic Garden
Grafix Mixed Media Journal 6"x6"
Lynne
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