The Beauty of Distress Oxide Inks

Hello everyone!  Today I got to sit down with a new tool and play for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #66. For this challenge, we are supposed to "color" something.  I hope ink blending counts as a type of coloring.  I actually made 4 cards today; two with dye inks and two with the new Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Inks.  It wasn't that I was planning to compare them, but when they came in today's mail, I could not resist stamping a couple more backgrounds to play with.

The original 2 cards were white heat embossing on Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper which is what I use 95% of the time for my card fronts. They take ink much better than cardstock when you want to do ink blending and I use a lot of shimmer mists in my cards so this paper works better and helps to achieve that seamless transition of color.  Once I learned to ink blend, it's a technique that I use often.  I almost had those cards finished when the mail arrived and I set them aside.

I stamped two panels using the Simon Says Stamp Emma Background in the original MISTI on the watercolor panels using Versamark and heat embossed them with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I simply can't help it - I love how rich and elegant the gold embossing looks. I do use other colors from time to time, but I use embossing on almost every card I make and I'm never as satisfied with any other embossing powders as I am with gold. The Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold is my favorite because it's a bit warmer and reminds me of WOW!'s Gold Rich Pale.  I used a very pretty sapphire blue the other day and I did like how that looked, but it would have looked equally as good in gold. For me the struggle is how to make cards without gold and that struggle is real my friends.  *Ü* I don't use shimmer mist on masculine cards, but it's hard to restrain myself when I think of how much more awesome it would be with shimmer.

I grabbed a couple of new foam pads for my Mini Round Ink Blending Tools and opened the Broken China and Cracked Pistachio Distress Oxide Inks and started blending the Broken China in the center of the panel. Since I watched Jennifer McGuire's Video from last week, I knew that I could start in the middle and be able to blend it out.  If you've tried this, you know it can be quite tricky with Dye Inks.  I blended the Broken China Distress Oxide all in the center of the panel and then went around the the rest of the panel with the Cracked Pistachio.  One of the first things I noticed was that while initially I thought I wasn't getting very good coverage, it only took seconds for it to saturate the paper.  Then once you hit it with the shimmer mist (or water), it oxidizes and becomes so creamy and smooth. It is very beautiful. For both of these cards I used Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold. It's my favorite, but it takes some work to find it. Happily, I saw it at CHA in the 7 Gypsies Booth and I got a business card so that I can order direct from their site.  Canvas Corp Brands owns Tattered Angel so you can go directly to their website to order.  They have about 50 colors, but I primarily use just Iridescent Gold.  I have some copper, pearl, silver and a couple of others but I had been on my very last bottle of Iridescent Gold when I left for CHA in January, so I was super happy to see it and no that I could still get it.

I grabbed my other embossed panel with Peeled Paint and Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide Inks and did ink blending in the same way, first with Worn Lipstick in the center and Peeled Paint around that. These were so easy and took so much less time (literally minutes) to get a beautiful, vibrant ink blended background. I'm telling you - I am in love!  Because of the busy the background is, I wanted to keep the rest of the card simple.

I cut the Concord & 9th Floral and Flutter Dies from gold cardstock and heat embossed the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Botanical Blocks Stamp Set onto the same watercolor paper. Then I die cut both of the backgrounds panels using a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die in the largest size.  One is mounted onto a card base made from Papertrey Ink Ripe Avocado Cardstock and the other card base was made from Papertrey Ink Vintage Jadeite Cardstock. Papertrey Ink's Perfect Match Cardstock is super smooth and heavyweight at #110. It is also the most reasonably priced cardstock out there costing just $5.00 for 25 sheets of colored cardstock.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Be sure to stop over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge to see all the great projects and the Simon Says Stamp Store to order supplies! Happy Friday, everyone!