Hero Arts Ombre Inks...I'm Lovin' Them

Before we get to the ombre inks, let's talk about yesterday's post. First of all, thanks for your comments and emails! They proved my point because opinions were all over the place. That's awesome!

I was, however, shocked that so many of you objected to the red sentiment. It never even occurred to me to change the red because I liked the font in red so much. The energy of it worked for me, and I wanted some contrast to the serene blues for added interest, and as it's a Christmas card, red made sense to me. Plus, the red and green seemed the perfect Christmas pairing on the second card. Clearly, I was in the minority on liking the red sentiment!

I do totally agree with several of you that the harmony of the blue card would be enhanced by a black sentiment.

Those little present dies are too cute to stop playing with; I may well revisit that design and do some of the tinkering you suggested. I'd like to do some shading on the boxes or some ombre effect with the Copics as well. Thanks so much for sharing your opinions.  That was fun!

Now, for the Hero Arts ombre inks.

Here's my selection of the inks. And if you're thinking that one upside-down pad doesn't bother me, you haven't been reading Simplicity for very long, now, have you? Ugh. But things around here have been pretty crazy lately, and letting little mistakes slide is therapeutic, Right?

If I keep saying that out loud, maybe I'll believe it.

One day.

Eventually.

Anyway, these inks are a lot of fun, but they do have some limitations, and not all my experiments have turned out like I wanted. I'll share several of them over the next few days, so you can see how these inks work for me. If you've experimented with them and have different results, I'd love to hear what you have to say about them.

To blend ink on these spectrum pads, press your stamp into the pad repeatedly, making slight adjustments up or down so the edges between the colors blend and blur. The more you use these pads, the better: ink will transfer to the the adjacent colors and soften the lines between them for future inking. In essence, these pads are good for overcoming the obsessive neat freak in me. The messier they are, the better they work.

If only my house were like that.

Today's card is my hands-down favorite of the recent batch of cards I made using these inks. All that blue makes me so very happy.

To make the card, I repeatedly stamped a branch from Papertrey's Turning a New Leaf set (a classic I will never part with!). Each image was made with a freshly cleaned and inked stamp since I had to keep rotating the stamp to fill the panel. That indigo blue on the bottom was so vivid that the vellum was perfect for the sentiment...the ink shines through beautifully.

The bling darkens on the way down as well.

I attached the vellum by folding it around the edges of the panel and adhering it on the back. That way, it floats above the background in a dreamy sort of way. Then, the panel was attached to craft foam for a bit of dimension. Just lovely!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Turning a New Leaf, Keep It Simple Thinking of You
paper: Papertrey white, vellum
ink: Hero Arts ombre sky to indigo, Archival black
accessories: rhinestones, tape runner (for adhering the vellum to the back of the panel), craft foam, glue