Distress Ink technique - very messy, very fun!

Hi folks,

I've recently been playing with Distress Inks and Tsukineko GOOSEBUMPZ spray and have had some nice comments so thought I would do a quick tutorial.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

• Craft mat (VERY important)
• Distress Inks in one or two colours (co-ordinating colours work best though I'm SURE you could try contrasting colours too ..... but they would probably "muddy" which might be gr8, just experiment)
• Water mister
• Smooth card
• Heat gun (or lots of patience as drying is required between layers)
• Background images (stamped either using the D.I.'s themselves or a toning colour)
• Focal image and a permanent ink pad (I used black to show up better)
• Tsukineko Goosebumpz (not familiar? See it here)

METHOD:

1. On your craft mat smoosh your Distress Inks (keeping them slightly apart to avoid colour contamination) and then spray with water till the ink "beads". I used: tumbled glass and faded jeans
2. Smoosh your card through your ink puddles ......... dry
3. Repeat step 2. as often as you like, until you like the finished result. Top up your distress ink as necessary - the example below is about three smooshings!
   
4. Stamp your background image/images using a tonal ink - the object is not to obliterate the focal image
5. Stamp your focal image using a strong image and a contrasting ink colour
   
6. When happy with your project and after protecting your work surface (you might want to spray this inside a box to contain the spray) shake well and then spray your goosebumps, covering your project and then set aside to dry.
7. Once dry you can cut out and mount on to a card or other project. The goosebumps will accentuate the colours and darken slightly too whilst sealing and adding texture.

Works great on an ATC too ....

Thanks for looking

Kathy

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone, hope you all had a lovely Christmas.

Santa was good to me, I got a Silhouette Cameo.  Having previously owned the Silhouette SD, I thought I'd let you know what I thought of the Cameo up to now.   I Love It!..... lol.

I had problems with cutting heavier card on the SD, and so was very limited as to what I could cut.  Eventually I lost my patience with it and sold it, intending to use the money towards the Cameo.  But life being life, the money went elsewhere.  I could never get good clean cuts with the SD, it just seemed to find it hard to cut the card.  The heaviest I could use was 160 gsm, and then had to poke cut bits out!

Anyway, I've cut a few different weight cards on the Cameo and had no problems at all, and virtually no cut bits to poke out with the pokey tool.  I also cut some Centura Pearl card, which must be almost 300 gsm, and it cut like a dream.  

This is my first card base, cut on the Cameo.  You can see how clean the cuts are.

For anyone wondering whether to buy this machine, I'd say 'Go For It', you'll love it.  And I can't wait to start playing around with the software and create my own designs.