Magenta Super Saturday - Distress Oxide Blends

Hi everyone, I'm over at the Magenta Blog today, and you can see that post here. I have six cards for you!

I've been having a lot of fun doing Distress Oxide blends. The combinations are endless, and once you start it's hard to stop!

I was inspired by Kristina Werner to play with Oxide blending. She has been doing different Oxide blends every Friday for over a month now, and her videos are mesmerizing. You can see the first one here, and they are all worth looking at. Although I have not used her specific color combinations, I really do like how they all turned out, and won't hesitate to use her examples for future blends.

Instead of blending the entire card, I did masked blending, where I mask off a strip to make a place to blend the inks.  The strip you use can be horizontal or vertical, and can be of any width you prefer.

With all the backgrounds I did, I made six cards, and still have 4 backgrounds to use for future cards. The blending is easy and fun, and then you can just choose a beautiful stamp and a sentiment and you're done!

Can you tell that the Wilted Violet; Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron combination is my favorite?

All of the color combinations are listed in the details below.

I want to show you something my hubby made for me to use to help with masked blending, and I think it would not be too hard for you to make also. I sometimes have trouble making my masked off areas straight and parallel, and making them the width I want. Measuring carefully is not one of my best talents. 

To make your own template like this one, take a piece of cardstock (I used 80# so it would go through the printer) and measure out a rectangle 4.25" x 5.5" in the center. This is the size of the cards I make, but you could make yours whatever size you prefer. Then put a tick mark every 1/4" along all 4 sides. My hubby did mine in photoshop, but you could easily just do it by hand with a ruler or a T-square.

You'll want to cut out the center rectangle, using a craft knife or use a paper cutter if you have the type of cutter that can make these partial cuts. The reason I wanted this template is so it would be easier to position my panel so that it would not move while I'm masking it. It's not as easy as it looks to get masks straight and parallel. Keep reading to see how this works.

I placed my 4.25" x 5" card panel into the center opening. This prevents the panel from moving while I mask it. You can see that with measurements on all 4 sides, you can mask it off in either the vertical or horizontal direction.

For masking, I used Post-it Removable Labeling Tape 695, and tore off pieces that would span the center panel horizontally. I chose 3/4" from the top of the panel for the first mask.

I chose 2.25" for the second mask, so that makes the center opening 1.5" wide. On another later panel, I chose a 2" opening. You can make the opening any size for the card you are planning.

Since I don't want to ink up my template, and I prefer to do ink blending on a craft mat, I just removed my masked off card panel. The masks stayed in place very well.

I placed the panel on my craft mat and chose 3 colors of Distress Oxide to blend. One of the tips from Kristina Werner is to blend these inks with a back and forth motion, rather than using little circular motions like you do with regular Distress. I found this to be a good tip. You will also have to alternate the colors several times to get a good blend, and to insure that one color does not overpower another.

My favorite part is removing the mask. You can use regular Distress ink to do blends like this also. I do find however, that the Oxide Distress inks blend much easier and more smoothly. This is because the Oxides are a hybrid of dye and pigment inks. The regular Distress inks are dye only, and that ink sinks right into the cardstock. The pigment portion of the Oxides stay on top for awhile, so the blending is easier. 

I turned each mask upside down and used them each twice. These were so fun and easy to make! I hope you'll try them.

I found the card below to be a more somber combination, and decided not to make it a birthday card. It looks like Fall to me, or maybe sunset. (Aged Mahogany, Abandoned Coral, Scattered Straw).

This one is going straight out to a good friend.

Card #1 Magenta Products Used:

02.319.L Floral Snowflake

07.975.I Large Happy Birthday

Card #1 Other Products Used:

Distress Oxide inks: Wilted Violet,

Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron

Versamark ink

Versafine Onyx Black ink

JudiKins clear Detail embossing powder

Post-it Removable Labeling Tape 695

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Card #2 Magenta Products Used:

48.018.N Large Daisy

07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday

Card #2 Other Products Used:

Distress Oxide inks: Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey, 

Cracked Pistachio

Versamark ink

JudiKins Clear Detail embossing powder

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

Stardream Copper metallic cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Card #3 Magenta Products used:

I.0243 Dandelion Pollen

23.114.C Dots

07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday

Card #3 Other Products used:

Distress Oxide inks: Wilted Violet,

Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron

Versamark ink

JudiKins Clear Detail embossing powder

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

So Silk Fashion Purple cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Card #4 Magenta Products used:

84.021.N Linen Flower Duo

07.430.I Happy birthday

Card #4 Other Products used:

Distress Oxide inks: Wilted Violet,

Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron

Versamark ink

JudiKins Clear Detail embossing powder

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

So Silk Glamour Green cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Card #5 Magenta Products used:

48.020.M Large Rosa Canina

07.975.I Large Happy Birthday

Card #5 Other Products used:

Distress Oxide inks: Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey, 

Cracked Pistachio

Versamark ink

JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder

Stardream Copper metallic cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Card #6 Magenta Products used:

P.0757 Blackbird

07.971.F Sending hugs

Card #6 Other Products used:

Distress Oxide inks: Aged Mahogany,

Abandoned Coral, Scattered Straw

Versafine Onyx Black ink

Stardream Flame cardstock

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables