Celebrate right now

 I'm afraid the gold on this card is not very clear, but I used the alcohol lift technique on my background and whilst the ink was still wet, added some gilding flakes.

The foliage stamp is from Impression Obsession and the sentiment from Technique Tuesday, embossed in gold.

Just Us Girls

She thought she could, so she did!

This card was a bit of an experiment. I made it for the challenge at CAS Stencil which is Alcohol Ink / Alcohol lift. As my friend of many years Anne Ray says... "Alcohol really does give you a lift!"

Anyway for this card, I thought that I would try NOT to use YUPO paper, NOT to use Alcohol Lift ink and NOT to use a commercially produced stencil... I did however use alcohol ink!

To begin with I cut a stencil with a Sizzix flower die from a piece of vellum. I used a piece of the smoothest card in my arsenal and added a few drops of various blue toned alcohol inks and some blending solution onto it. Because this card is more porous than Yupo it dried quite quickly. I then put my 'stencil' over the card and used Stazon Stamp cleaner fluid dabbed onto a piece of paper towel to lift some of the ink through the stencil. It worked reasonably well and gave a somewhat hazy outline but I really rather like the effect!

I used the actual vellum die cut as a bit of an overlay and the glue I used to stick that, makes it somewhat translucent.

The sentiment is from a set by Clearly Besotted.

Now you may see the reason for my post title.. things like this don't always work out, but this time it did!

PS Big WELCOME to Viv on the Design Team at CAS Stencil... what a great addition to the team. well done Viv!

CAS on Friday Use a Stencil

CAS Mix Up Alcohol ink lift

PS Just saw that I had already added three cards to the Mix Up challenge so this one can be ignored!!!!

More alcohol inks

This is really such a fun technique!

A few drops of alcohol ink onto some Yupo paper, a dash of blending solution and watch the magic happen. When dry, I stamped onto the paper with a Local King stamp of Bluebells... (I'd forgotten I had it and it's so delicate, I love it)  using Alcohol Lift Ink. 

I dabbed away the excess lift ink with a paper towel before gently buffing to bring out the design a little more.

Before cleaning the stamp, I stamped it onto some fresh paper and the ink I'd removed from the Yupo and transferred to the stamp made another image! Here's the card I made with that.

The challenge at CAS Mix Up is for the Alcohol lift technique, so this is another card for that.

I used Stampin' Up Pacific Point Ink to stamp the sentiments; it complements the colours of the alcohol inks really well.

Here's another using the same combo of inks as on the first card. Somehow I forgot to do a secondary stamping with the ink I'd lifted from this one. I think I was foolishly thinking that the sentiment would come out in mirror image which of course is crazy, it would just be a regular stamp and not a kiss technique, so I missed my chance there!

CAS Challenges

When I was looking for something else, I happened upon  this stamp from Rubberneckers, which immediately made me want to do a background for the challenge at CAS Mix Up, which is to use Alcohol Lift Ink!

I used drops of three shades of green alcohol ink om some YUPO paper and then added a little Blending solution an mix up the colours and allow them to mingle. I inked the stamp with Alcohol Lift in and stamped onto the paper once is was totally dry. after dabbing any excess ink with a piece of paper towel I buffed the leaves with clean paper towel, lifting the remainder of the ink. I love the effect it gives.

The sentiment stamps and dies are from Clearly Besotted and I decided to raise the words on dimensional pads for a little more interest.

Alcohol Lift, Stamping, Die Cutting.

Meanwhile over at CAS Watercolour Challenge, a celebration for my lovely friend Darnell's birthday is taking place and she is being presented with heaps of bouquets of flowers!

Mine is a simple bunch of tulips, from stampin' Up, gently coloured with watercolours. I love to watch the reaction of the pigment with the water as it doe its 'thing'!

As she is such a special lady I may have to try another one for her, I must have a rummage through my stamps!

Happy Birthday Darnell.

Alcohol lift ink

The joy of the CAS Mix Up Challenges is that is makes you try stuff that you meant to do long ago!

I wanted to try the alcohol lift technique some time ago... got the products I needed but as they arrived in dribs and drabs I didn't get around to trying it! SO here we are with my first attempt. I used a half sheet of Yupo paper and dropped a few colours of alcohol ink onto it together with a few drops of belnding solution then swished them around a bit with a sponge tipped  pad. Then I added a stencil from Stamplorations and tamped over it with a felt tipped dauber with a few drops of Alcohol lift ink. I dried it off and then buffed with a paper towel after removing the stencil

I die-cut  an aperture in the card to put the panel behind and added a stamped sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

I feel a few more attempts with this medium coming on!