Think ink - part two...

...so I posted that birthday card I recently made on the Cricut board and a few people mentioned that they were a little bit intimidated of inks.

My only thought was, "Don't be!" I used to be, too - but you just have to be willing to play around and get dirty (your desk, your papers, your projects, your fingers...LOL...and in my case, the floor and what you're wearing) and you'll come up with some pretty fabulous things!

I thought I would put together a few things to show what fun things can be done with ink pads!

Inks pictured: Kaleidacolor, Studio G, Brilliance Dew Drops, Adirondack
Other materials: Glossy cardstock, Rubber Brayer

As always, supplies (unless otherwise stated) are from Marti over at Pez-a-Doodle! (Actually, I'm looking at the picture now and ALL materials are from Pez-a-Doodle! What are you waiting for? Get over there!)

First I just started by playing around with background stamps and glossy cardstock (I heart glossy cardstock!) Take your background stamp and pick a few random ink pad colours. Mix them up, they don't really need to be all one brand! The only thing to remember though is stamp light colours before stamping on the darker colours - less likely to contaminate a darker coloured ink pad with light colours than it would be the other way around! And voila, you get something like this:

Background Stamp a Pez-a-Doodle exclusive!

Pretty! Just an easy, simple way to dress up a background stamp - rather than have it being one solid colour!

Another way to get some colour on that glossy cardstock:

You can NOT go wrong with multicolour inkpads! I used Kaleidacolor in Fruit Cake and Cappuccino Delight and using a brayer, applied all the bright pretty colour onto my cardstock! The whole technique was so laid back, I didn't even worry about where the colour was going, I just brayered the whole piece like crazy until I was satisfied with the colour. Decorate to your heart's desire!

Did these sound easy to do? Well then what are you waiting for? Get out your inks and play!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: MISS INDEPENDENT - NE-YO

Bits and Pieces...

...okay, I have been MIA so long, it's almost embarrassing! I can't believe I've let everything fall to the wayside like that! I can't believe I can't find the time and/or the energy to drag myself into the scraproom! And then on some days when I feel like making something, I just work on top of the mess that's already there - therefore, I will never get a proper clean-up - unless I set aside, oh say, a weekend!

As some of you who actually still check this will figure out, I'm going to be back-dating some entries so I won't totally annihilate your eyes by putting everything on one single post!

So going back - let me first start off by saying that being on Marti's design team is MINDBLOWING. I kind of suck a tiny bit (probably more than a tiny bit) since I haven't done much lately - obviously...but HOLY MOLY! I got home late one night after being harrassed at work and there's a box sitting there waiting for me. And I open it...and *jaw drops*

There's stamps (wooden and acrylic), there's ink pads, there's GOODIES gallore, lemme tell ya, and this is what I come up with after a fortnight of hemming and hawing over what I should make:

*shakes head in shame* Can you BELIEVE it? Well, you might be able to since I didn't take a picture of the oh-so-wonderful goodies for you to know the ENDLESS possibilities that was presented to me and this is all I could come up with.

Anywho, I guess you might call this an ATC (artist trading card), but really, I have no idea what it is. I would say it's a 3D embellishment that will hopefully, one day, find it's way onto a card or layout. In the meantime, this is it.

I'll take you on a short walk through it...

The stamp is a Hampton Arts wood-mounted collage-looking stamp. I took my Kaleidacolor multicolor ink pad (in Cappuccino Delight) and using a brayer, I brayered some multicolor yumminess onto a plain ol' piece of cardstock. I love multicolor brayering...it's the one time you don't have to be neat or precise about it, and it still comes out look fab! Anywho, I stamped my image using Adirondack dye ink (I'm not remembering the color right now - let's just call it...BROWN) three times on the now-inked up cardstock. I left one stamped image and cut around the outside to make it the base. The next image, I cut out the next largest piece of the image I could - which would be the lady. I pop-dotted her onto my base and it starts taking on a 3D effect with the base image being the background. Lastly, I cut the last image with one more layer - the clock.

For a finishing touch, I used my Sakura glitter pen to add little bits of glittery detail. So simple *wrinkles nose*

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: JUST DANCE - LADY GAGA