Distress Oxide Ink Pads First Try

Hi Everyone, Well after a long wait to get stock of these new Distress Oxide ink pads I couldn't wait to try them out and see what all the excitement is about. I decided to start with a simple blended/layered background. One of the main properties of these new stamp pads is the ability to blend or layer them without ending up with a muddy mess! Basically if your colors are wet they will blend together just like the original distress inks, but if you add wet ink to dry ink it will create layers  instead.

A bit of a timid start I just used three colors, Fossilized Amber, Cracked Pistachio and Broken China. I smeared some of each onto the craft mat and sprayed a little water on to them, when you first put the ink down on the mat the colors look quite dull but when you add the water they become much more vibrant. I had pre-cut a piece of white card slightly smaller than an A6 white card blank and dragged this through all three colors of wet ink, then dried it with a heat gun and repeated the process two or three more times. By drying the ink in between it makes the colors form layers rather than just continually mixing, you can carry on doing this until you are happy with your background. Before the final drying I, again rather timidly, dripped some water onto part of it (above and to the left of the flower head) you can see some marks where the water has oxidized the color out of the ink, if you dab with an absorbent cloth it will exaggerate this effect.

Once the whole background was dry I used a foam ink blending tool to add extra color here and there using the ink directly from the ink pad this time and went around the edges of the piece of card with Broken China to finish it off.

The background has a lovely creamy, matt finish that looks as though it would rub off if you touched it but....it doesn't. :)

I stamped the leaf stem and greeting directly onto the background in black pigment ink.

I was very happy with the way the inks performed and reacted with the water to create the lovely effects. I will be a bit bolder next time!

Thank you for visiting, I hope you like it, please leave me a comment to let me know what you think.

Debbie x

Materials used:

• White A6 blank card and envelope
• White card
• Fossilized Amber, Cracked Pistachio, Broken China Distress Oxide ink pads
• Foam ink blending tool
• Grass Stems clear stamp set
• Friendly Phrases clear stamp set
• Black pigment ink pad
• Tape Runner by Glue Dots
• Folding heat gun

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