Saturday, December 5, 2009

Plaid with Alcohol Inks

Loved this idea by Tim Holtz of making a plaid background with alcohol inks on glossy card stock. For fantastic step-by-step instructions, see this post on his blog. I was surprised that I got all these colors on one piece of felt, I guess my drops were very small.
Here are some of the plaids I made today.
I wanted to turn one set of plaids into Christmas cards. Following Tim's instructions, I dropped some Alcohol Blending Solution onto an area I planned to stamp where I wanted the background to be lighter. While heating with the heat tool, the blending solution evaporated and lightened the background. Tim said not to worry about the big mess, it would all work out.
Stamped a large greeting, a snowman and some snowflake images with black Archival ink and dried with the heat tool. The snowman was stamped over the area lightened with the Alcohol Blending Solution.
Used metallic pearl white acyclic paint on a texture stamp to create a snowy appearance on the plaid background.
Attached a metal tag with red ribbon, by running the ribbon under the snowman's head, it helped the snowman stand out. Used fired brick Distress Stickles to color the snowman's hat band and scarf, along with the eye on the black bird and accent to the holly. This was then adhered to a dark green card.
Used another plaid to make another card. Made the same way as the snowman card, using tree stamps in place of the snowman, and a different flourish stamp. And used a different texture stamp to create a snowflake look. Attached a metal star brad to the top of the center tree. The red ribbon is mostly covering a large black stripe I thought was too big. No problem now.
This plaid with alcohol inks on glossy card stock makes for a very festive grungy look for Christmas.

2 comments:

Rosie Rowe said...

You almost shame me into making cards again!! Carol, to my mind, nobody does it better or explains it more clearly than you! (Well, maybe T!m... lol!)
You're one inspiring lady!! =)

Lindart said...

Love the plaid background, and the cards you made with them! Lovely - good for me, from a Scottish family!