Ink Colour Sample Ring

I came across a thread on SplitCoast Stampers Forum the other day, posted by RachelRose,about making a Distress Ink Sampler. So, in my current mode of organising, I thought that sounded like a good idea. Once or twice in the past, I've been caught out by a colour not being quite what it looked like on the lid- with the Distress ones, I think Chipped Sapphire looks quite Purple on the lid, but is more Dark Blue in reality. I thought this also might encourage me to use different colours, rather than just my 'go to' ones.

I found out a pack of little tags I'd bought, WHSmiths, I think. I dabbed each tag on an inkpad, smoothed the ink over with a (gloved!) finger, then stamped on top of that with the same colour using a little stamp. I'll get slightly different results on different cardstock, of course, but its quite a good guide as to what to expect.
 I was going to put them on a ring with the strings, but they dangled too much, and tangled up. So I cut all the strings off, and threaded them onto the ring again.
Each one has a little label on the back with the name.

Adirondack inkpads are the ones where I find a few look quite different to the colour on the lids, or what you might expect from the name, so those were next.
 I only had half a dozen tags left by now, so I cut some strips of glossy card about the same size, about 2"x1". I inked them exactly the same, thin snipped them to a tag shape, and punched a hole in each.
 To my eyes, of these, Mushroom looks quite Grey on the lid, but on card is definitely Brown.

Pesto looks Green on the lid, and although there is a green tinge to it, its definitely at the brown end, more like a Dark Khaki.
You can tell how long I've had this- its one of the flip top lids!

And Pebble- lid looks Grey, but it's more Brown.


So I had both threaded onto rings, but didn't feel they had enough room to move about, so went foraging to see if I could find anything slightly bigger.

 Found what I needed, lol. If you look closely at the 'ring' , you'll see its actually an old hoop ear-ring :).

 Both sample rings, labels on the back, hanging on their ear-rings! Thats the biggest job done, as those are the pads I have the most of. I just have a few oddments of others to do now- a few Ancient Page & Vivid, and some assorted dewdrop pads

Love this- Triple Stamping from Frenchie

I came across this technique in a post on the SCS forum, and I love it! The technique is demo'd by a lady called Frenchie on her blog,and she has put a video up showing how it works. It is really easy to do,and it exploits the 'halo' effect you get by stamping over more than one layer of paper, a mask, for instance.

If you work off the instructions she gives, bear in mind that American cardstock sizes are slightly different to ours, so you will need to make some adjustments. I will list the sizes I used, which should give you the idea.The card here is 6"x4", and the base card forms the final matt layer, so your matt card needs to be the same colour.  So, to make this card I used:
Base card 6x4 , First matt 5" x 3", second matt 4" x2", all in black.
Then three pieces of white card to stamp on,
First piece  5 3/4" x 3 3/4", second 4 3/4" x 2 3/4", third 3 3/4" x 1 3/4".
The first thing I did was to flip the white card over and write a small 'T' at the top of each one. You need to keep all the layers the right way up for this, or the image won't marry up, and when you come to matt the pieces it is not easy to tell which way is up. 

         Next, layer all the white pieces together, keeping them equally spaced, using some repositionable glue or tape. Now choose your stamps, you want probably two, and a sentiment.

For my card I used a Butterfly Kisses Happy  Anniversary stamp, one called Sakura (the flower) also from Butterfly Kisses, and a flourish stamp.

Mine is slightly different from the ones on Frenchies blog, I used the sentiment stamp as the main focus on the top piece of card. Then I stamped the flower, and finally the flourish, making sure they all overlapped the three pieces of card. Don't worry about the 'breaks' in the design, this is exactly what you want.
Next you take the three pieces apart, and matt each one onto its corresponding matt. You can see how its hard to tell up  from down !


 








When you put the layers together, your eye just completes the image. To embellish I stamped the Sakura flower a couple of times, heat embossed with a sparkly powder, then cut them out & layered them up with silicone glue.

This is such a simple technique, yet makes, I think, a really stunning card- perfect for fast cards! I'm thinking this could be great for Christmas cards this year  
I got a bit carried away, and did a few more:


The Blue card uses a DoCrafts Whispers Words stamp, 49902, for the sentiment, the Sakura flower again, and another swirl. The Best Wishes is another Butterfly Kisses stamp.
I then wondered about other shapes, so did some tag shapes, sponging them in Oranges & Yellow Distress Inks. I've overstamped them with a Crafty Individuals stamp, CI305, for the central image in Adirondack Espresso,and the cogs are from PaperArtsy, Clocks Plate 5, the clock and cogs from Clocks Plate 3, in Versafine Sepia.






I shall be matting these up onto a dark golden brown card.
I also thought that maybe Nesties shapes could be good for this, and have cut out some Octagons, which I haven't stamped yet, and some labels which I have. Just need to add some colour to those.