Stonehenge

“Messing” With Infusions Coloured Stains

Posted on by Lynn Hill

While we were snowed in last week here in Oklahoma I used the time to experiment with some of the unusual items I have in my crafting stash. A while back I bought several bottles of Infusions Coloured Stains by Paper Artsy (a stamping/crafting company based in France) because I saw someone using them and was intrigued.

Of course, like lots of crafty things we buy, when they arrived I couldn’t remember where the exact video was that caused me to want the product in the first place. They have been sitting on my desk for months awaiting my curiosity to cause me to pick them up and give something a try.

Infusions Coloured Stains – By Paper Artsy

These stains are powder form and come in small plastic bottles. They are a water soluble pigment dye mixed with a walnut stain that dissolves as it mixes with any liquid.

To dispense the colors it is recommended that you poke a hole in the cap and sprinkle the amount you want on your paper. The only problem with that is once you poke a hole in the lid the pigment has the opportunity to be a spill risk anywhere and everywhere the bottle sits (or topples). Several sites recommend placing a piece of Scotch tape over the hole but I know that would be a fail for me too.

So far, I have simply used the tap-on-the-side-of-the-bottle method to sprinkle a bit of the powder on the surface I wish to colorize. This keeps my lid intact and I think it will be neater in the long run…At least for me.

Let me warn you, the keyword when using these stains is moderation. A little goes a LONG way. Believe me, I learned that quickly! Oh, and you might want to wear some rubber gloves if you don’t want to be stuck with color drenched fingers for a veritable lifetime.

For these experiments I knew my paper would be getting very wet so I used a few scraps of Stonehenge warm white and Canson cold press watercolor paper (140 lb).

Before I even decided what type of card I might try making, I decided to play with the stains and see what happened when I got them wet. First, I painted a piece of watercolor paper with Matte Mod Podge, sprinkled bits of Are You Cerise stain, then used my flat paintbrush to brush the color into the Mod Podge. I sprinkled some of the Lemoncello stain beside the previous color and blended the two then repeated the same steps with a couple of other colors. This technique created a nice wood grain look.

Four different techniques using Infusions Coloured Stain

The second attempt was created by sprinkling a small amount of two colors (Are you Cerise and Lemoncello) on the paper and then spritzing the paper with water. This method makes it easy to have mirror image copies of the same paper because a second piece of paper is smooshed (a highly technical term) on top of the color sprinkled wet paper.

Lightly sprinkle paper, sprinkle with water, then “smoosh” a second piece of paper on top

Next, I sprinkled Are You Cerise on a piece of paper, spritzed it with water, dried it a bit with a heat tool, and then placed Simon Says Stamp’s In the Round stencil on top. I rubbed the top of the stencil with a paper towel to remove some of the color and was left with a slight coloration/discoloration pattern.

Finally, the piece I love the most was created when I sprinkled a generous amount of pigment onto my paper (Black Knight, Green Man, and Lemoncello). I spritzed it with water galore and then sprinkled a bit more of the pigment on the paper. I then placed Picket Fence’s Current of Fish stencil on top of the very watery paper.

The surface of the stencil was then rubbed with a dry paper towel…And another dry paper towel, repeating until it appeared that most of the water had been squished from beneath the stencil and sopped from the surface. I removed the stencil, lightly blotted the remaining water, and then dried with a heat tool.

Two pieces of paper were made using this technique to see if it could be repeated or if the look was a fluke. Both pieces were similar but very different. I really like the dark, dark colors.

The paper is beautiful but the stencil was a sopping mess! Nothing soap and water can’t fix.

I was satisfied that I had a paper I really liked so I decided to create a card using the “fish” paper. I wanted to keep the colors dark because I felt it created a deep ocean appearance.

I moved the rectangle die around on the paper until I found the perfect cut for my card.

I then began selecting and coloring my card elements. I found a cute set of military stamps from Sweet Stamp Shop on a destash group a few weeks ago and thought the submarine was a perfect fit for my deep ocean theme.

The submarine also set the color scheme for my sentiment which I created using Y17, Y15, Y13, and Y11 Copic markers. I fussy cut the submarine since Sweet Stamp Shop (a now defunct company) did not create dies for their stamps. The yellow submarine not only gave the card a little brightness but it was also the perfect image for a young boy I know that loves the song Yellow Submarine.

I stamped each element using Catherine Pooler’s Twilight Ink and then colored the whale (My Favorite Things Fish You Were Here) using Copic cool grays (C7, C5, C3, and C1) with a final pass over the entire image with B000. Doesn’t every whale need just a touch of blue?

I filled out the card with a small school of fish colored with Copic E71 and adhered water bubbles using Tombow’s Mono Aqua glue with Studio Katia’s clear drops. The fish background was elevated using Scrapbook Adhesives 3D foam strips. I think both cards turned out really cute.

I hope you enjoyed my “messing” around. If you have used Infusions Coloured Stains I would love to look at your samples. Just leave me a message and let me know your Instagram/Facebook/Blog link so I can take a look!

If you would like to see some other cards using my Infusions Coloured Stains paper creations, please visit my Instagram (@LynnHillIsACraftyMess) and my Facebook (@LynnHillIsACraftyMess).

Supplies:

I do not receive compensation for listing the items I have used in this post; however, I like for you to be able to easily click links to order any items you might find interesting. When Possible I have included two links in case items are out of stock on one site.

** MFT Fish You Were Here has been discontinued by My Favorite Things so a link directly to MFT’s website was not available.

Be sure to come back to my blog next week when I hope to invite Spring to arrive with a cute card using one of my favorite My Favorite Things springtime stamps. Better yet, let me remind you to return by clicking the link to subscribe to my blog. You’ll never miss any of my posts since you will receive an email each week when I create new blog entries. Thanks for stopping by!

Faux Watercolor Technique

Posted on by Lynn Hill

In the early days of America, and probably before, farmers used small notebooks to keep track of their crops and the day-to-day activities on their farms. The fact that many farmers didn’t read made the images they drew in their notebooks an important and valuable asset for their homestead. The small drawings of seedlings, pests on the land, and random marks reminded them of what they could expect from year to year. These were some of the early field notes. Of course naturists, scientists, and researchers still use small notebooks to record their observations of whatever they are studying. And, traditional Field Notes have become popular

Taylored Expressions recently aroused a love of Field Notes with a fun kit of card making tools titled just that, Field Notes. Florals are often a favorite of card making enthusiasts but I will have to admit I haven’t been much of a fan because I just can’t seem to make them consistently nice. But this line of stamps intrigued me and once again I decided to give florals a try.

I bought most of the items from the Field Notes (Set 1) line and started out by mimicking a card that was shared on the Fans of TE Facebook page (thanks Teresa Dolan for the outstanding idea). 

Daniel Smith Watercolors

For my first card (the “copy”) I used Daniel Smith Watercolors (cobalt teal blue, spa green, burnt umber, and Aussie red gold) to watercolor the flower. I cut the flower using the Sketchbook Florals die and created a background using the Frayed Edge masking stencil and snippets from the Field Notes sentiment set. I propped the flower up using Scrapbook Adhesives 3D Foam strips and splashed the project with walnut ink before adhering it to an A2 background and card. And, don’t forget to generate interest in the contents for your recipient by adding a sneak peek of the artwork to the envelope. 

Don’t forget to decorate your envelope with a sneak peek of what is inside!

My second card was also created using Field Notes elements but I decided to use my new favorite and chose a mini slim side-fold card. I enjoyed using watercolors for the first card and decided to switch it up just a bit  but still used a watercolor technique (some call it faux watercolor). I used only two colors to create the flowers (Marvy LePlume II markers in #4 green and #20 magenta). I placed the stamp in my Misti and colored the flower portion of the stamp with magenta ink. After stamping the image onto Stonehenge warm white paper I colored the stamp with green ink covering the stem, leaves, and the center portion of the stem all the way up the stamp. 

Card #2 was created using a Faux Watercolor Technique

For the faux watercolor technique, I used a wet paintbrush to pull the ink from the edges of the image being careful not to mix the green too far onto the buds of the flowers. To highlight the lighter magenta color I began at the top of each bud with the wet paintbrush and pulled the color down to meet the darker magenta that had had been created when the magenta and green had mixed.

I die cut the flowers and then cut my background pieces using patterned paper and the largest of the Petite Scallop Mini Slim Stacklets dies for the base and a rectangle cut from the Stonehenge paper using the Stitched Mini Slim Stacklets. I cut two small tags from the Sketchbook Florals set and stamped the white one with a Sketchbook Florals sentiment.

Field Notes and Sketchbook Florals

I splashed walnut ink on the Stonehenge rectangle and the flowers. After letting them dry I then assembled the card onto a mini slim side-fold base, first attaching the sentiment tags with a very small button brad and finally adding some Stampin’ Up All The Trimmings embellishments to the card.

I have to admit, I have never been a fan of floral cards. That’s partly because I find it difficult to make florals look nice. That all changed with this stamp set and I would highly recommend trying the Field Notes products. Better yet, check out the new Field Notes #2 Kit! (I don’t get any kickback for any of the links that are included on this post, I just like the products and wanted to make it easy for you to check them out and/or buy them too).