Halloween Series 2020 ~ Alcohol Ink Backgrounds ~ The Greeting Farm

 Hello there crafty friend!

Today I'm sharing a couple of spook-tacular Alcohol Ink Backgrounds along with a couple of adorable stamps from The Greeting Farm!! I've been an avid collector of The Greeting Farm stamps for a couple of years now, but I never seem to have time to play... so I made time! I have two cards I've created using one Alcohol Ink Background!

My first card using the adorable little monster from the Trick or Treat 3 stamp set by The Greeting Farm. I also used a cute little Happy Halloween sentiment from Papertrey Ink.

I used the following Copic Markers for this card:

Skin ~ E000, E01, E11, R00, R20

Costume ~ V04, V06, V09, YG01, YG03, YG67, C00, C1, C3

And my second card featuring the cutest mad scientist I think I've ever seen!! Love him! His experiment has gone very wrong... lol!

I used the following Copic Markers on this card:

Skin ~ E000, E01, E11, 

Mouth ~ R00, R20, C00, N0, White Sakura Gelly Roll pen

Hair ~ YG01, YG03, YG17

Costume ~ BV000, BV13, BV17, N0, N1, N2, N8

Scientist Flask ~ YG01, YG03, BG000

You can check out my process video ---> Here.

That's it for me today! I hope you'll come back tomorrow for the last day of my Halloween Series... I'm sharing a trick I've learned for making oxide backgrounds with digi stamps.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

The Rabbit Hole Designs ~ Coffee Lovers Spring I Summer 2019 Blog Hop

Hey crafty peeps!!

So, a few days ago I shared another card using The Rabbit Hole Designs stamps... you can check that card out here ---> Handmade Brew card. When I made the background for that card, I also made this background that I set aside just for the Caffeinated Rabbit! I have been just itching to ink this guy up!! I love this stamp so much!

This was totally me this morning!! LOL... 

So, I considered just leaving the background as is, but as I was reaching for my stitched rectangle die and I saw the Cover Up Stitched Clouds die by Lil' Inker Designs.  I thought it would make the background even better and I have to say that I love it! I very simply colored the rabbit with just a little touch of N0, N2, and R20 Copic markers. The cup was colored with V01 and V06. Now I was gluing down the rabbit and decided to put a little grey mat under him... imagine me doing a mad dash for the grey card stock LOL!! Well, since I was in a hurry I just hand cut my oval-ish mat and glued it hastily down and then finished adhering the rabbit. It was all very hare-ied *wink* *wink* and hilarious to me, anyway!

I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of the same grey card stock using VersaMark watermark ink and then heat embossed a fine white embossing powder. I trimmed the sentiment down to a flag and then popped it up on the panel. The main panel is also popped up on the white card base. 

There you have it... a fun, quick card!

There's a couple more days for the Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop. I sure 

hope you've had a chance to play along!!

Thanks so much for checking out my blog post!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

The Rabbit Hole Designs ~ Coffee Lovers Spring I Summer 2019 Blog Hop

Hey crafty peeps!

Today, I'm sharing my love of coffee using The Rabbit Hole Designs little freebie stamp that I received in my last order from the new May release!! If you're not familiar with The Rabbit Hole Designs stamps... you are missing out!! After you check out my card, go check them out!

Once I saw this sweet little stamp set I just knew I had to make an alcohol ink background and pull out my much neglected Alcohol Lift Ink ink pad. I used turquoise and raspberry alcohol inks and just swiped the ink across the yupo card stock using a blending tool with the felt. I stamped the beautiful partial coffee image several times, along with the 'Love' and 'coffee' stamps. I even decided to stamp a few of the caffeine molecule stamp... so fun! 

I'm not sure why my card has a yellow tinge in this picture, but I took a few different photos and couldn't get a better picture so... here it is. 

I mat the alcohol ink layer onto a piece of Tempting Turquoise card stock and wrapped the vellum layer over top securing it with adhesive on the back. I popped up the panel onto a white card base and added a few white enamel dots... bam! Love how it turned out!

I encourage you to check out the Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop... it's so much fun!

Thanks for checking out my blog post today!

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs,

Crystal

Coffee Loving Cardmakers ~ I Just Need Coffee!

Hello! Today, I'm sharing some truth... I just need coffee!! Haha... but really, I'm sharing a fun card for another fabulous guest spot at Coffee Loving Cardmakers. 

I created an alcohol ink background and also used Alcohol Lift Ink and of course, one of my favorite owl stamps from Rubbernecker Stamps.

Trying to get a photo of this card was a challenge because of the shine on the Yupo cardstock. With that being said, that white behind the owl (to the right) is glare. 

I was having fun the other day creating a bunch of backgrounds using alcohol inks and I thought it would be fun to use some coffee colors. I don't have a lot of alcohol inks so I ended up using Butterscotch, Espresso, and Turquoise (of course!) with a bit of Gold Mixative. Once my background was how I liked, I blended Alcohol Lift Ink over the Tim Holtz Mini Stencil Set 3 - the one with the coffee ring and splatter. I dabbed the background with a paper towel until it wasn't as saturated and then I rubbed the background to remove the rest of the Alcohol Lift Ink. Doing that basically lifts away the alcohol ink that was on the background. Such a fun technique!

I set aside the background piece and stamped Preston ~ isn't he the cutest! ~ onto Canson XL watercolor paper using VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed a fine black embossing powder. I watercolored Preston with my ZIG Clean Color Real Brush pens and then die cut him out with the coordinating Preston Die Cut.

I set Preston aside and went back to work with the background... I needed a sentiment, but Preston doesn't come with one so I searched through my Rubbernecker Stamps and found the perfect sentiment, ironically, in the Coffee Set. Preston looks like he NEEDS coffee! Don't we all?!

I stamped the sentiment using Versamark watermark ink and heat embossed a fine black embossing powder. Since I was heat embossing on Yupo card stock which is a plastic card stock, I was careful to not heat it too long... just enough to melt the powder. 

I then mat the background piece with Taken with Teal card stock from my stash. I popped the background up on a Vintage Cream card base and then adhered Preston with Multi Medium Matte. I just adore this card! I sure hope you like it too!

Thank you friends for checking out my blog post! 

See ya next time.

Inky Hugs!

~ Crystal

~ Growing in Unity ~ Day Five ~ Alcohol Lift-Ink

Hello! I can't believe that it's my last day being the Growing in Unity gal... I'm so bummed, but I'm really excited to share my fifth Source of Inspiration... Technique!

There are so many techniques out there to try in our paper crafting world. 

Most recently Tim Holtz released a new fun ink called Alcohol Lift-Ink that can literally lift the ink from a background piece created using alcohol ink on Yupo card stock AND you can then stamp on regular card stock transferring that ink from the stamped background. (I hope that makes sense. For more details do a search for Alcohol Lift-Ink on YouTube. Tim Holtz shares a wonderful tutorial on how to use this ink). Let's check out what I created, shall we?!

I have to admit, I'm new to alcohol inks... but I've found them very forgiving. What I mean by that is, if you don't like how your background is going you can literally paint some rubbing alcohol over it and just basically start over. In fact, I did this with this piece. The background wasn't flowing how I wanted... it was more splotchy and really not the direction I wanted it to go. So I got my paint brush and my jar of rubbing alcohol and painted all over the piece. I blended the colors of the alcohol ink and really just softened it. From there I was able to add more alcohol ink and using a blending tool with the mini applicator felts I could move the ink around the way I wanted.

For this background, I used Turquoise, Willow, and Butterscotch Alcohol Inks with some Mixative Copper. Now, for the fun Alcohol Lift-Ink technique... I stamped the gorgeous background stamp from the Everlasting Romance set using the Alcohol Lift-Ink and then stamped it again on white card stock. I set the white card stock aside for my second card and dabbed my alcohol ink background with a paper towel. Once I had dabbed it enough so that the ink didn't appear wet, I gently rubbed the background with the paper towel. This process really makes the stamped image pop. I then stamped a portion of the sentiment from the He Will Sustain You stamp set by masking it off. 

While learning how to do this technique, I saw a video by Jennifer McGuire where she cut the background piece similar to this. I loved how it looked but found that a white card base didn't work for this background, but copper did! Before I adhered this to my copper card stock... I pulled out the heart stamps from the God's Sight set. I laid out the background pieces on my mat similar to how they would be on the card and then stamped them with a gold ink (I don't have a copper ink, sadly.)... almost making the hearts look broken. 

I die cut a stitched rectangle piece of Tonic Pearlescent Card - Cosmic Copper and adhered my cut pieces of my background leaving a bit of space in between for the copper card stock to peek through. I wrapped the panel several times with copper metallic thread that I adhered on the back using scotch tape. I then punched a hole and added an antique brad from my stash. I popped up the whole panel using foam tape and adhered it to a Vintage Cream card base. In the picture above, you can see some of the detail in the background and also the hearts that I had stamped. That's it for my first card using this technique. Now onto card number two...

I wanted this card to be more simple... I started with the white card stock piece from the Alcohol Lift-Ink technique. Isn't that just beautiful?! I really loved how it turned out, but I wanted to also use the other stamps in the God's Sight stamp set. I stamped the girl using Old Paper distress ink and then I stamped the sentiment using Gina K's Black Amalgam ink.

I added a few drops of Nuvo Silver Lining drops... sadly one of my drops got messed up a bit, but I think it still turned out lovely overall. 

I had so much fun creating each and every card for you all this week. I sure hope that you've enjoyed my creations this week and that maybe I've helped you find more Sources of Inspiration.

Be sure to leave a comment on each of my GIU blog posts for a chance to win one of two fabulous grab bags of 25 stamps from Unity Stamp Company!!! You'll have until Sunday to comment on each post and then I'll pick two winners on Monday.

You can check out my other GIU days:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Thanks so much for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal