Finding your inspiration comes from many sources. I love to talk about what I find to push the creative muse out of her comfy chair. (she sit’s too often these days)
Today’s blog post begins a month long series on a few simple topics to help you find some Friday inspiration. The work week is wrapping up and you can carve out some creative time over your weekend. Be it half an hour or a good long inky session.
Join me each Friday through to the end of October as we seek out some much needed inspiration as we officially swing into the holiday mode! Here are our topics! You’ll see the next few images each Friday as I choose a different tear off tab. I hope this post and the social media posts will inspire some comments and chatter on the @astampersmailbox platforms!
Choosing a tear off is fun – remember high school & college when bulletin boards were covered in these? Let’s bring that back – digitally:)
This is where the inspiration led me today. I looked at my desk and then let my eyes travel around the room. Do you have unfinished crafting projects lying around? I know I do. I grabbed 3 of those. Ink- A Crafters Collaboration this month had a Color Challenge and all the inks are still on the desk, Paper: in my watercolor bin was this board with an envelope already taped to it, and cardstock: an oversized blank Cajun Craze card base sitting in the space I create for Facebook Lives.
For the tape: this is Sensitive Surface Frog Tape. It’s one of my fav to keep around in the craft room!
This is an amazingly fast technique and requires zero watercolor skills! Load that ink pad lid with water, blend it by swooshing the Water Painter brush or any paintbrush you have on hand into the ‘ink puddle’ and swish that inky mess right onto your paper!
Have fun with it – make several while you are at it! Lay them out to dry for about 15 min. before stamping on them. ( that’s the slow part)
Same Ink as a Watercolor Medium technique applied here. Quick swish with the same Crushed Curry ink. Interesting how much lighter it looks. I could have gone over it several times to deepen the color hue, but decided to leave it a bit lighter to allow my inking to show.
Click on the above image to see another ink wash blog post project!
Time to choose some stamps. Today’s focus is on Ink as a Medium so I thought it would be fun to show some love to my stash of Paper Pumpkin stamps. If you’ve been a subscriber to Paper Pumpkin for any length of time you have quite the collection of small stamp sets. There are many ways to organize them. I keep it simple. I use a decorative box and trim out the title with the month & year showing.
I cut this off when I’m done using the instruction insert from the box. I just tape it onto the plastic. Nothin’ fancy here. But this allows me to flip through them without using up alot of valuable crafty space.
Here are the stamps that piqued my interest today. A fall themed set along with 2 others that have beautiful scripty fonts that pair well together.
Would you like to start your stampers subscription with Paper Pumpkin?
The above image will take you over to the Paper Pumpkin Website!
This month (October) is a Christmas Holiday Cardmakers themed kit.
These photos don’t do the ink colors justice.
I used all 3 colors on the large leaf image!
Stamping on this large leaf image: Use the Stamparatus stamp positioner for best success with photopolymer stamps! Last Fridays FYIF post talks alot about the stamp positioning tool! If you missed it – back up to read that one too:)
first ink with Crushed Curry
second, ink the stamps and some of inner veining with Cajun Craze
lastly, ‘kiss’ the tips of the leaves with Blackberry Bliss ink.
Applying multiple colors to one stamped image is easy with Ink Spots or Stampin’Write Markers.
Tip: Always start with the lightest color leading out to darkest and clean your stamp before re-inking each time. So that you don’t contaminate your lighter color ink pads! Protect that ink!
This card took no time at all, keeping the layers simple and letting the Ink Watercolor Wash shine!
Tip: Tuxedo Black Ink on watercolor paper/watercolor wash techniques really does benefit from a blast with heat. Use an embossing heat tool or your hair drying to make sure that ink is really dry before assembling your card!
A card that pretty needs good stuff on the inside too.
I chose not to use the Stamparatus stamp positioning tool on the inner layer so that I could have varying shades of inking here. I kept it really ‘free form’.
Tip: Make sure your envelope is dry before stamping and when pulling painters tape or masking tape off – peel backwards at a 45 degree angle to mimize pull / tearing of the paper fibers.
And it’s done! A beautiful Ink as a Medium Autumn inspired card. What will be the tear off tab inspiration for next Friday!? Join me here on the blog to find out!
