Thursday, January 14, 2010

Pigments & Pearls - in the beginning



I was questioning my purchase of all the Ranger pigment ink pads because I don't find myself using them very much, if at all. Wendy Vecchi wrote to the EverythingWendyVecchi Yahoo group and reminded us of a video she'd made for Ranger called 'Pigments & Pearls'. I watched it then started playing with some color combos.

On this tag I used Terra Cotta and Lettuce pigment pads and Bronze Perfect Pearls. Essentially you smoosh the inks onto your craft sheet then spritz with the PP & water you mixed in a Mini Mister. Press the tag into the mixture, dry with your heat gun. Continue layering the colors as desired, drying between layers so the colors don't get muddy.

The bird, flourish stem and flowers are Sizzix (655961-Bird w/ Branch). I punched them out of craft cardstock and colored with Distress Inks (Peeled Paint, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick, Black Soot, Walnut Stain). I also sanded the edges to further the distressed look. I added a rusty snap and some metal flower findings to the flowers. Distress Stickles (PP, SM, FB, and BS) were added in a few spots. I did wad up the tag and smear it a little bit with Vintage Photo Distress Ink - it's okay but not quite there. I ironed it from the back side so the elements would lay down better. Hmmm...I inked up the tag's edges with Walnut Stain DI, distressed the edges, and then added some Black Soot DI around the edges again.

After doing a trial layout I felt the background still wasn't layered enough so I stamped Wendy's background stamp from 'Ticket to Art'. Now I'm getting somewhere. The bird, flourish and flowers were elevated using foam tape. I stamped the sentiment (Invoke Arts) in the lower left corner but messed it up. Grrr. I found the red paper doily heart but of course it was way too red and shiny. Espresso Pigment Ink to the rescue! Sanded it a bit with Tim's sanding block. Love it! I stamped the sentiment again using a stamp positioner. Whew! Now I can glue the heart down strategically covering my blotch. I'm quite satisfied with the end result. Thank you, Wendy!

Davinci's quote really says it all for me...I need my muse to make art!

4 comments:

  1. Love the tag. Sometimes mistakes can be to the positive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Way to go! Ha, that's funny, I went home last night and tried that technique with my pigment inks too, after the discussions on the groups. Your take is awesome, love that bird!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great job Susan. I love birds and can't get enough of them!

    ReplyDelete