Distress Oxides: Overview

I have been playing with Ranger/Tim Holtz's Distress Oxide inks quite a bit lately. My friend Pam Nelson and I were laughing at ourselves recently, because when these inks first came out, our first reaction was "oh, I'm not going to need these...don't really like them." These actually turned out to be one of the inks that I love the most, and trust me when I say I have a lot of inks.

Here's a card that I previously made and has been previously posted, using Distress Oxides. I really love this card, and it illustrates something that I think that the Oxides do best: backgrounds. Don't get me wrong! These inks stamp beautifully, and due to the pigment component in them, you can heat emboss with them - typically using clear embossing powder, or a glitter/iridescent powder such as JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle, which gives a beautiful, sparkly look to your stamping.

The original post for this card is here. It features some stamps that I designed for Magenta. The technique featured here is smooshing to get a blend of lots of colors and lots of movement.

Another technique that works well with Oxides is blending colors on a background with a blending tool. Oxides blend so well because they are a hybrid of pigment and dye inks. The pigment component in the ink stays on top of the paper for some time, so it's easy to continue to move it around when you're blending. Another factor of the pigment is that the inks are somewhat opaque, so that when you are blending, you should go back and forth with your colors so that one doesn't overwhelm or cover up the other.

Here's a card that I made using blending, and then splattered with water and more Distress Oxide ink. This card was also previously posted here. The top of the flower is foil, but the background, including the stamped sentiment is Oxide ink.

I also really like this one, using this same blending technique, and using stamps that I designed for Magenta. The images were stamped on a blended Oxide background using Versamark ink, and embossed with White Diamond embossing power from JudiKins. You can see the original post here, where I show blending with these inks.

I was talking to another friend who pointed out that these ink colors don't look just like the regular Distress inks of the same names. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do some blends of these inks. I'm not going to show blends in regular Distress, just the Oxides for this post. I hope the colors translate well enough on the screen for you to see them.

I know this is a shock, but I DON'T have all of the colors! There are currently 36 colors out, and I have 31 of them. For blending, I grouped them into color families, and then put the neutrals together.

First are the reds: I love bright colors, and I like all of these.

Oranges and Yellows:

I'm not super happy with my photography on this one. The Spiced Marmalade really blends into the Carved Pumpkin above it, and the Wild Honey below it. In real life, the Spiced Marmalade has more of a rusty tone to it. Carved Pumpkin and especially Wild Honey have more yellow in them. Fossilized Amber turned out looking darker than I usually get when I blend with it. Squeezed Lemonade was a great addition in the latest round of colors released.

Greens:

Love them all, and my special favorite is Twisted Citron, that looks almost yellow sometimes. I did not get the Forest Moss color, but may still add it to my collection. I'm looking forward to a really green, green like Mowed Lawn.

Blues

I absolutely love all of the blues, and wouldn't want to do without any of them.

Pinks and Purples:

I really like all of these colors too, and my favorite is Wilted Violet. I think it's just a luscious purple. I have always thought that Seedless Preserves is a hard color to blend. I don't know what it is about the properties of this color, but it's hard for me to blend in the regular Distress and also the Oxide. I found that with the Oxide Seedless Preserves if I press harder, I get a smoother blend. I have come to recently have an appreciation for this color because it looks to me like a dark pink, and is really pretty on a card.

Neutrals

Since I'm not a big fan of the neutrals, I don't have all of them. I don't really use them for making backgrounds much, and I only occasionally stamp with them. Everyone is different though. I was showing these blends to some friends and one of my friends exclaimed "oh I love these" over the neutrals. There is definitely a place for these in a collection.

Here are all of them together. There will be 2 more releases of colors according to Ranger and Tim Holtz. One should be released in the Spring/Summer and the other in the Fall. Each of them will have 12 more colors, until all 60 colors in the Distress line are available in Oxides. Although Tim has said that due to the special properties of the Oxide inks, there could not be mini pads for the Oxides, he has recently said that the chemists are working on it...it just might be a while. I for one, wouldn't have wanted to wait to see if they are able to come up with the minis.

I'm going to be working on some cards using the Oxide blends in the next few weeks.

I'm also working on some cards using a new technique that Tim Holtz came up with called Glazed Oxide Backgrounds. These have a completely different look to them that I think you're going to like.

And making both kinds is addictive.

Products:

I'm going to include links to the Magenta stamps used in the above examples, but if you want to know everything I used in the above cards, you can link to the original posts.

07.969.F Magenta have a Beautiful day!

44.018.K Magenta Zen Dragonfly

07.869.D Magenta Thinking of You

44.024.Q Magenta Zen Bouquet

07.968.H Magenta You are Amazing

Ironing Foil

I was attempting to find a new Technique to share this week, but I wasn't able to get this one to work as well as I wanted it to. I decided to share my card with you anyway, since I still like it very much.

Honestly, I never liked ironing all that much, and this attempt did not change my mind. I have heard that this technique works for others, it just didn't work well enough for me. Maybe my iron wasn't hot enough? 

I first cut out a panel of 80# Neenah solar white cardstock using the largest die from the Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables. This gave me a stitched panel that is 5" x 3.75" Then I cut the Poppy die 1737 Floral Stem Collage (I really love this die) out of the center of my panel.

This gave me the floral cut out

This die comes with a second piece that you can cut out and place on the flower. I die cut the second petal piece out of toner paper.

The second petal piece gives you a piece that has some detail and is very pretty.

The way that foiling with toner paper and heat works is that you place the foil over the toner cut out and then get it hot enough for the toner to melt, which makes the foil stick to the toner. This works super well when you sent your piece through a laminator or Minc machine. 

I chose Deco Foil Amethyst Watercolor for my petals. I really like Deco foil because it's thicker than others I have tried and seems to work best. I cut a piece out and placed it on top on the petal die cut, and placed them inside a piece of wax paper. 

The pretty side of the foil should be up.

I ironed it for some time, trying to get the toner hot enough to melt.

When I removed the piece it looked like this. You can see the imprint of the die cut petals.

When I peeled off the foil, a lot of it had stuck to the die cut. I will say though, that the foil is not as shiny as it gets when it goes through the laminator. I added the foiled petal to the flower on my panel.

I made a background on Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock, using Distress Oxide inks in Wilted Violet, Broken China, Fossilized Amber, and Cracked Pistachio. I flicked water and additional Wilted Violet mixed with water onto the panel and die cut it with the large stitched rectangle die in the Die-namics MFT-463 Blueprints 13 die set.

This is the flower panel placed onto the background, checking to see if I liked the colors, and I did, so I adhered it and put it onto a base card. I added some small beads to the center of the flowers, and stamped the Magenta sentiment "Thinking of You" 07.869.D in Distress Oxide Wilted Violet.

I tried this with a second die-cut and a different color of foil and a lot less of the foil adhered to the toner die-cut. I'm not really sure why, and so I didn't feel good about using this as a Technique of the Week, since I couldn't get reliably similar results. I really do prefer the pieces that have gone through the laminator. If you do not have a laminator or Minc machine, you can get one fairly inexpensively, and if you like the effect that foiling gives you, it's well worth investing in one.

We have foil and toner paper at Art 'n Soul now, and we have more of the Distress Oxides on the way. You can check out my previous posts using Deco Foil, toner paper, and a laminator here and Deco Foil, the Minc toner pen and a Minc machine here.

Products Used:

Poppy die 1737 Floral Stem Collage

Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Die-namics MFT-463 Blueprints 13 die set

Toner paper

Deco Foil: Amethyst Watercolor

Magenta 07.869.D Thinking of you

Distress Oxide inks: Wilted Violet, Broken China,

Fossilized Amber, Cracked Pistachio

Scor tape

Neenah Solar White 80# & 110# cardstock

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Technique of the Week: Distress Stain Daubers Two Ways

This post is in conjunction with the Art 'n Soul newsletter Technique of the Week.

I played with some of my Distress Stain daubers, and I have to say that this stuff is so much fun. One of the things that I wanted to try first is to see what would happen if I applied stain to a stamp.

This is a pretty simple one layer card, but it was fun to make, and I love how the colors turned out.

Distress Stain comes two different ways, spray and dauber bottles. I like both of them, but they are very different in how the finished product appears. I like the sprays, but they are just that. The daubers seem to be more versatile. For this project, I chose Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon, Fossilized Amber and Abandoned Coral. I also chose a Magenta stamp, 85.020.N Swirly Leaves, chosen partly for the amount of solid rubber on the stamp

Of course I used the MISTI tool when stamping, because I did think that I would want to ink and stamp more than once.

And I was right. I think I inked and stamped about 3 times, and I really liked the results.

The stain really beads up on the stamp surface, but I wasn't worried, knowing that I could stamp in the same place as many times as I wanted to.

The first stamping was pretty, but I wanted more definition to the image. I added the colors in rainbow order so that even if I added one adjacent ink over another, it would not make mud, but it would blend in a pleasing way.

I really like the watercolor-y look this gives and I will use the stain daubers to ink my stamps more often. I put a little of the Mermaid Lagoon stain on my mat and picked it up with a paintbrush to flick some specks on the image also.

I wanted to use the daubers in a second way, so I created a background using them. (First, while I had the stamp in the MISTI, I stamped a second panel to use with the background).

To make the background, I tried just dragging the daubers over first regular cardstock, and then over watercolor cardstock. The stain really soaked into the regular cardstock pretty quickly, so it was difficult to do much blending of the colors.

When I rubbed the daubers over watercolor cardstock however, I sprayed it with pearly water (1/4 tsp Perfect Pearls powder mixed with 2 oz water) and the colors blended beautifully.

Once my panels had dried, I put the two cards together. For the first card, I stamped it with the Magenta sentiment stamp 07.869.D Thinking of You. I used Mermaid Lagoon Distress ink for the stamping so it would match the color in the image. 

I decided to use the rejected regular piece of cardstock to mat my card. I had tried putting some water splotches on it and I think my wet baby wipe got on it too, but none of that would show. I cut my stamped panel to 3.75" x 5" using the Lawn Fawn die LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables; and I cut the matting panel with Die-Namics MFT-463 Blueprints 13 (which has a die that will cut a stitched rectangle to 4" x 5.25")

This is what the panels look like together, and I think it's a good use of the rejected piece of cardstock. (And yes Eion, I reversed the colors between the front panel and the mat on purpose).

I adhered the pieces to a base card and added some sequins for added interest.

For the second card, I stamped the Swirly Leaves stamp onto the background with Mermaid Lagoon stain. I then stamped the Magenta sentiment 07.962.F Happy Birthday Little in the corner with Versamark ink and embossed it with White Diamond Embossing powder.

Since I didn't want to cover too much of the background, I cut the original stamped panel into a smaller piece 4" x 1.75" using Die-Namics MFT-470 Horizontal Stitched Strips, and cut a slightly smaller piece of craft foam to adhere to the back of the panel, and popped it up on the background piece.

Here's the finished second card. The focal image is spotlighted with the same image repeated on the background. I added some sequins for bling.

I hope this will encourage you to try using Distress stain daubers. There are other things you can do with them as well, including mixing colors and die-cutting, and using them to make "splats" I will try to explore other uses in future posts.

Magenta Products Used:

(If you are local, please look for products at Art 'n Soul. If you are not local and wish to find Magenta products, you can click on the link in the stamp or product name below each image, or you can visit the Magenta online store here).

85.020.N Swirly Leaves

07.869.D Thinking of You

07.962.F Happy Birthday Little

Other Products Used:

Distress Stains: 

Mermaid Lagoon, Cracked Pistachio, Fossilized Amber, Abandoned Coral

Die-Namics MFT-463 Blueprints 13

Die-Namics MFT-470 Horizontal Stitched Strips

Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Tim Holtz Watercolor paper

Perfect Pearls powder

Versamark Ink

JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder

white craft foam

Various sequins

Technique of the Week: Stampboard Watercolor

Special Thanks to Kae Pea from Rubbermoon for the inspiration for this technique!

This is actually not so much a technique as it is discovering a new (for me) medium. I recently was on Facebook, and I saw a live post from Kae Pea of Rubbermoon, where she was doing watercolor painting on clay board, or stampboard. 

By the way, I just want to take a moment to say if you have not "liked" Rubbermoon's page on Facebook, be sure to do that right now! She does live instructional videos, and posts lot of inspirational art. For that matter please "like" the Art 'n Soul page, and the Magenta page also, you won't regret it! 

Let me start out by saying that Kae Pea makes it look so very easy, but she has a lot of experience with painting. My big take-away from the experience is that it was just a lot of fun to paint on the stampboard. It's a very forgiving surface - no pilling, no warping. Kae Pea chose to paint on a 2"x2" stamp board piece, and I chose a 3.5" x 5" piece.

At first I did a layout on 3.5" x 5" piece of watercolor cardstock. This was just to make sure I would be happy with the general layout of the piece, and the colors. I did change some of the colors when I moved on to using the stamp board. I will post the card I made with this layout in another post.

For the stampboard project, first I stamped the Magenta leaf image (0454.J) using Ranger Archival Sepia ink. I dried the image with a Ranger Heat-It tool, just by waving the heated air lightly over the board. Stamp board can bubble if it gets too hot, so be careful with this step.

I decided to paint the leaf images with Nuance, and chose Bright Yellow, Yellow Orange, Orange, Nutmeg, and Red. For the sky I chose Royal Blue, Aquamarine and Turquoise. I tapped some of each color into a palette  and added water mixed with a little Perfect Pearls powder for some shimmer. 

In her video, Kae Pea had recommended to paint the image with water first to help the paint flow better. I worked in small areas at a time and layered the colors onto the leaf images. When I was happy with the leaves, I painted the three shades of blue all around the leaves as though they were falling through the sky.

My card panel on the left, and Stampboard panel on the right

At the end I added a little mica watercolor from an Artquest Palette in gold, copper and silver. I also flicked the mica watercolor over the images.

The last thing I did was to stamp a Magenta sentiment (Thinking of You 07.869.D) in the corner using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink.

One of the cool things about stampboard is that you can use a tool or craft knife and scrape paint off. You can create highlights, or just scrape away where you painted outside the lines. It's a very forgiving surface, and it took the paint very well and dried quickly. This project was a lot of fun to paint! I think this would be lovely as the front of a little book or journal. Kae Pea made her 2"x 2" pieces into little gift magnets - so cute!

I hope you will give Stampboard a try. Art 'n Soul has several sizes in stock, as well as a tool you can use for scraping.

Magenta Products Used:

(If you are local, please look for products at Art 'n Soul. If you are not local and wish to find Magenta products, you can click on the link in the stamp name below each image, or you can visit the Magenta online store here).

Magenta Nuance

0454.J Leaf

07.817.H May the Love

07.869.D Thinking of You

Other Products Used:

Versafine - Onyx Black

Versamark

JudiKins Gold Detail embossing powder

Ranger Archival Jet Black ink

Ranger Archival Sepia ink

Artquest Plaette watercolors

Stampboard 3.5" x 5"