A Blogging Break and Some Thoughts on Dye Ink

Giving you a heads-up that August will be kinda crazy for me, so posting on Simplicity will be sporadic at best. Do not be alarmed if there aren't posts for a week or more! Life's full of lots of good stuff for our family right now, but crafting time is going to be nearly nonexistent for most of the month.

Still, despite all the goodness going on, I'm looking forward to the end of the month and more time to create! I'm contemplating some new and different paper-crafty stuff (not just cards), and would love to hear if you have any particular requests for what you'd be interested in seeing on this here corner of the interwebs. Please share your suggestions in the comments below or email me at susanraihala at roadrunner dot com.

Can't wait to hear what you have to suggest!

In the meantime, I do have a few cards left to post. This one, which I made yesterday, thrilled me with its simplicity and the high-impact, bold autumnal colors.

The card base is made of Windsor & Newton watercolor paper. I took a large sheet (22" x 30") and cut it into sizes to fit odd-size envelopes that have collected over the years.

Today's card is 6.25" x 4.5", so slightly larger than the usual A2-size card. To get the watercolor effect, I inked the stamp from Papertrey's Watercolor Wonders set with the yellow from Kaleidacolor's Autumn Leaves ink, spritzed it generously with water, and stamped. Then, working quickly, I cleaned the stamp, re-inked it with the green from Autumn Leaves, spritzed again, and stamped it while the yellow was still wet. I love how the green bleeds into the yellow!

Once the green and yellow inks were completely dry, I added the sentiment from Papertrey's Wet Paint using the two darkest browns on the Cappuccino Delight pad, spritzing with water as well. By waiting for the green and yellow to dry, the brown didn't bleed into the yellow, which (I suspect) would have looked a mess.

This watercolor-spritzing technique requires the right dye inks. I find that Hero Arts dye inks don't work as well as I'd like for this. They seem to get blotchy rather than watery. If you have better luck, please share in the comments. I'd love to know if I'm doing something wrong because the Hero inks have some AMAZING colors. For me, the best results come with Memento and Kaleidacolor dye inks. 

Oh, my. Have I once again justified owning a million different ink pads? How conspicuously consumerist of me!!!!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Wet Paint, Watercolor Wonder
ink: Kaleidacolor
paper: Windsor & Newton watercolor paper
accessories: spritzer bottle full of distilled water