Author Archives: CraftKatie

Trying Ranger’s Alcohol Inks

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If you want to learn how to work with alcohol inks, I can highly recommend watching Tim Holtz’s demos on his blog. After which: start practising!

A great starter kit would be a pack of Yupo papers, at least 2 colors of alcohol ink, and a high percentage alcohol. If your budget allows it: add Ranger’s Blending Solution too, for it will offer you some more options when working with the inks.

I have to say these inks are fun to work with, the colors are vibrant and their fluidity is quite different from dye inks or spray inks; it seems a lot thinner and it ‘flows’ differently. You can use a hairdryer to move them around on your paper, or some kind of hand air pump like Ranger‘s Alcohol Ink Air Blower or JoyCrafts’ Ink Blower.

JoyCrafts Air blower for alcohol inks

Personally, I use Tim Holtz’s Distress Marker Spritzer Tool – remember that one? It was designed for something different but it’s also a great alcohol ink blower!

Lastly, you can even blow through a straw – but be careful, for you’ll get dizzy extra quickly due to the alcohol vapors…

Next to blowing your inks around, you can also use an ink blending tool (with a felt piece instead of a foam piece) and dab-dab-dab – either with inks, or blending solution, or a mixture of both. Add some high percentage alcohol to the mix to get even more effects.

Ink blending tools can be bought from several companies, Ranger among others.

Speaking of substrates: always use a non-porous surface. I used Yupo (a plastic ‘paper’) and also a gessoed craft tag. Ranger‘s Alcohol Ink papers are of course also very suitable. Whatever substrate you use, each will have its own unique properties so it’s useful – and fun – to experiment a lot!

Below you’ll find my first set of such experiments:

Yupo A4 sheet (cut into 7 smaller pieces) – alcohol inks – blending solution – 99% isopropyl alcohol:

Yupo – alcohol inks – copper mixative – blending solution – 99% isopropyl alcohol:

Yupo – alcohol inks – pearl mixative – blending solution – 99% isopropyl alcohol:

Craft tag (cardstock) – gesso – alcohol inks – pearl mixative – blending solution – 99% isopropyl alcohol:

What about you? Have you tried alcohol inks yet? Or perhaps you’re an advanced alcohol ink artist? Let me know and share your story in the comments below!

Tutorial: Deconstructed Envelope Card – Version 2

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A little while ago I shared a video tutorial on how to create Version 1 of my deconstructed envelope cards. Today it’s time for Version 2, the original of which I shared in one of my previous posts, it looked like this:

So this week you can learn how to create one yourself, by following along with my new video tutorial! Just pause the video at any time you want to read one of the measurements or instructions, or if you want to study a detail.

Have fun creating, and leave a comment if you like!

Creating a Mixed Media Card

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This week I wanted to show you how to create a mixed media card, using inks, grit paste and embossing glaze. So, I set out and created one on camera – or so I thought… As it turns out, my camera wasn’t recording at all during most of the proces! šŸ¤¬

So I started over and did another one, with the camera actually rolling this time.

Step-by-step proces

Card 1 – This is the one I intended to film but didn’t. I painted a background in three shades of purple. Added ink through both stamping and stencilling, then took a second stencil and added a translucent texture paste (in this case Ranger’s Distress Grit Paste). Then I colored the grit paste while it was still wet, by covering it with a transparent embossing powder (in this case Ranger’s Distress Embossing Glaze). When the grit paste had dried, I heat-embossed it to melt the Glaze. Heat-embossing is a great way to color your texture pastes btw. You can check out one of my previous posts to see more of that technique.

Card 2 – same steps but with different colors. (This is the one I actually create in the video.) Some small differences: I used some ink sprays (from Ranger’s Dylusions line) instead of paint to color the background, and I used two colors of Embossing Glaze instead of just one. I also finished it as an actual card, so I added a decorative die-cut and a chipboard sentiment and sent it off as a birthday card šŸŽ‰.

Enjoy the process video, hope you’ll find it helpful!

Graffiti-themed Paperbag Mini Album

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Here’s my latest mini album, Graffiti-themed this time! Meant for a young man turning 16 soon, his mother (my friend) asked me to create a paperbag mini for her son. It has been a while since I made these; I did a romantic shabby chic version and a Christmas version several years ago, and this Graffiti version has been the first one since.

This time I used some of the mixed media techniques I recently started adding to my papercraft repertoire – which added a whole new dimension of fun to working with design papers!

Tutorial: How to fix broken eyeshadow

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Ever received an eyeshadow palette over the mail that arrived broken, like the one in the picture above? Or perhaps, also like me, you’ve dropped it on the floor yourself and can’t think of anything else but throwing it away frustrated? Well, no more, for here’s the solution! šŸ™‚

In between all of the craft videos I thought I’d insert this makeup-related tutorial, it’s really a great fix so I wanted to share it with you. And it’s at least somewhat in the same realm of crafting, right šŸ˜‰

Next video I’ll be back to papercrafting, I promise – but I hope this helps at least some of you out anyway, please let me know in the comments if it does – or if you have other ‘fixing tips’!

Coloring with embossing glaze

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This week I’m sharing a nice way to color your texture paste with Distress Embossing Glaze – or frankly, any set of colored embossing powders. This technique is demoed by Tim Holtz by the way, on his blog.

First, I created a background with Distress (Spray) Stains and added some splatters with a Distress Oxide spray.

Then I used a stencil to add some texture paste. While the texture paste was still wet, I sprinkled several colors of Distress Embossing Glaze over the tag, and gently tapped underneath to get rid of the excess and at the same time prevent all of the colors mixing together.

The texture paste I used dried opaque white; you’d get even greater effects if you use a translucent paste, together with the Embossing Glaze, because this way your tag would still show some of the background colors through the layer of paste & glaze.

The final step: melt the embossing powders with a heat gun. You now have colored your texture paste!

Learning about inks, gesso & micro glaze

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This week I’m sharing something I learned about Ranger’s Distress Micro Glaze, in combination with Distress inks, gesso and Glimmer Mist: they don’t go well together. šŸ™ƒ

So this was my process: I stamped with Archival ink on a card, but some ink accidentally landed on the lady’s face. I could have started over of course but I always like to try and fix things, for you learn way more this way. So I ended up putting some gesso on her face in an attempt to cover up the spilt ink. Perhaps not my best idea ever, but: “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit” (quoting Tim Holtz).

That didn’t look too great of course, so I then decided to cover all skin parts in gesso, to get consistent texture at least. I then proceeded to watercolor the image and background with Distress Reinkers and added some embellishments.

So far so good, except I didn’t like the background at all, I felt it needed more interest. I used Distress Micro Glaze to seal the inked image, roughly covered the blings with some kitchen towels and sprayed the card with a Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels (remember those? I must have had this in my stash for at least 5-6 years…)

The reason I sealed the image was of course to prevent it from being glimmermisted. I only roughly covered the blings because I expected the image to be sealed anyway so I thought it didn’t matter I wasn’t too precise.

However, as it turns out, the Glimmer Mist took hold everwhere I had used the gesso and the image was not covered! Since that was only parts of her skin, she now looked, well, bruised…šŸ˜±šŸ¤­

So I decided to spray the entire image with Glimmer Mist, turning the lady completely purple – in what I’d now like to call an Artsy Way.šŸ˜Ž A less than perfect solution no doubt, but it was the only one I could come up with. Besides: “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” (quoting Steve Jobs).

To finish up, I added a die-cut in metallic purple, and I sprayed the back of the card as well – mostly as an afterthought, but I’m glad I did it.

So now we know either one of two things (I’m not sure which at the moment): a. either Micro Glaze does NOT seal Distress Ink on gesso, or b. Distress Micro Glaze only seals surfaces from other Distress products, and not other kinds (like Glimmer mist). More experimentation will be needed to find out which… šŸ¤“

And of course I’m curious: what would have been your solution, either to deal with the spilt Archival ink, or the partly purple, quasi-bruised lady? Let me know in the comment section!

Birthday Bash Stepcard (+ template!)

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Step cards come in many different shapes and variations, but they always have this common denominator: there’s always at least one ‘step’. The variant I’m showing you today is what some people call a Center Step Card, which is a ‘one-step’ step card. The first one I ever made I entirely cut, scored and shaped myself, which was quite some work because of the specific cuts and creases of this particular type. After that, I bought myself a die which made that part a lot easier. Mine is from Crealies but I’m sure other brands out there have them as well.

If you don’t own the die, here’s a template for you to make one by hand:

The papers I used here are from Pink Paislee, the collection is called Birthday Bash. They are fun summer colors and some sheets have a specific birthday theme. Each sheet is double-sided so with only two sheets I got myself four patterns.

I always like to cut only one piece to mat the front and backs, which takes some extra detailed measuring. Or you could use the same die, if you have one. I show you how in my free video tutorial on how to mat a step card using a die.

The final step is of course decorating. Here I used some layering, die-cutting and stamping. Ans as a finishing touch I wrote 80 (which is how old my aunt now is) in both glitter glue and liquid pearl, on both the right and left panels.

Beyond Backgrounds: Large 3D Butterfly

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In my previous video I shared a card with a very large handmade 3D butterfly on the front.
Today I’m sharing the steps to create such a decorative element.

First, create a background with any color mediums you like. I used Distress Stains and a Distress Spray Stain by Tim Holtz, in three colors.

Next, enhance the background with some stencil art. I used a Distress Oxide in the same color as one of my sprayed inks, through a mini stencil by Tim Holtz.

Stamp your image onto the background (after it has completely dried) with Archival Ink.

Fussy cut the stamped image.

Don’t forget to color the (still white) back of your butterfly, since we will be folding its wings up! I simply inked it with one color and stencilled over it with another, again using the Distress line.

To add some extra interest I also sprayed the back of the butterfly with some silver, using Distress Mica Spray in Brushed Pewter.

Now your image is ready to be used as a great eyecatcher on your card or art project!

Hope this was useful to you, if so, let me know in the comments!

How to help a teen start card making

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My friend told me her 13-year old daughter (hi Mia!) was on the lookout for papercraft projects to create herself, especially since the lockdown measures have been keeping all of us mostly at home the past months. So I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be fun if she had not only an idea offered to her, but also the materials to create it, together with an actual project example to learn from.

So I chose one of my card designs that would be fairly simple to imitate, and set out to make one. After which came another fun part: rummaging through my (quite elaborate) stash and finding all kinds of bits, pieces and ephemera for her to use to create her card.

There were some things she would not be able to imitate, like the stamps and die-cuts I had used, so I stamped and die-cut several elements for her and added them to her gift box.

Finally I decided that she could use some extra supplies, since she might want to create even more cards on her own.

I had a lot of fun with this ‘reverse haul’ – giving gifts always makes me happy, it’s so much fun to think about little details that capture what you know about someone, even if that isn’t very much šŸ™‚ So I hope this video inspires you to go look for that same kind of happiness, by creating your own gift box for someone you know (or their teen).

By the way, stay tuned for my next blog post, in which I will show you my step-by-step proces of creating the large butterfly. šŸ˜‰

A water-colored card (with Distress reinkers!)

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Stamps are of course great adornments on almost any background, but you can also go the other way around: start with a stamped image on a white background, then coloring it in yourself – Including the background.

I started with a nice image of a rustic window, its shutters open, some vines and flowers growing around it. I stamped with black archival ink on a piece of sturdy matte-coated paper I had laying around and didnā€™t know any properties of – but thought, oh well, weā€™ll see, this will probably work at least somewhat (and it did šŸ™‚ ).

I then took out my Distress ink Reinkers, put a couple of drops of each color in a Tim Holtz Ink Palette, and went to work with a watercolor brush pen.

I colored the entire surface, paying special attention to the window panes (how does one color glass…?)

When the ink was sufficiently dry, I covered each window with Glossy Accents, to give them a nice ā€˜window-likeā€™ reflection.

To finish it off I die-cut a sentiment (Congrats) from rose gold (almost copper) metallic paper and attached it to the lower right corner.

All in all it was a nice, meditatively calm kind of project. The reinkers worked wonderfully as watercolors, and the ink palette came in handy. But note that you canā€™t really travel with the ink palette because the ink drops will not remain in their pans – which to me was a disappointment.

Free video tutorial: Deconstructed envelope card!

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Today itā€™s time for some papercrafting again – with actual design papers I mean šŸ™‚ I fell in love with one of StudioLightā€™s recent collections, Jenineā€™s Mindful Art. I took two double-sided 12×12ā€ sheets (plus a sheet of cardstock) and created a deconstructed envelope card.

And because itā€™s summer and weā€™re still suffering from various lockdown measures, Iā€™m offering you a free video tutorial to take your mind off things.

Hope you like it, leave a comment to let me know!