Throwback Thursday: Make Your Own Pearly Sprays With Distress Inkers

Some years ago, I did a post about making your own pearly sprays with Distress Inkers, water, and Perfect Pearls powder. This is still a great technique and you can see the post here. I pulled out my sprays recently to make a birthday card for a friend, and it was so fun that I plan to make lots more of this same kind of background.

For this card, I used a stencil from Magenta that came from a set called Zen Trio. 3 great stencils inspired by some Zentangle patterns that I drew up as examples. This one is my favorite.

I sprayed the back with Krylon repositionable adhesive, and stuck it down to a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock. I masked off the top and bottom and just sprayed lightly with 3 colors of the spray. In real life these colors are shimmery and very pretty. 

For the sentiment, I stamped the Happy Birthday on a piece of black cardstock with Versamark ink and embossed with white embossing powder. I attached it to the card, and added a few gems. I matted my panel and attached it to a base card.

Here, from my old post, are the 3 colors I used to spray with - my 3 favorite Distress colors: Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed, and Peacock Feathers. Use my link above to pull up my previous blog post and see how I made them.

Also, about the sentiment. This is a favorite of mine. It comes from a Magenta stamp that has Happy Birthday written out in 7 languages, and this stamp was made at my request some time ago (yes Iceland is one of the languages). I still love this stamp and use it often. I purchased an extra one and cut it apart so that I can stamp the sentiments separately, in whichever language I want. Of course, it looks good all together too, but I've shown you lots of those (here's one)

Magenta Products used:

TM54 Zen Trio

07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday

Other Products used:

Distress re-inkers: Picked Raspberry;

Mustard Seed; Peacock Feathers

Ranger mini misters

Perfect Pearls powder

Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock

Krylon repositionable spray adhesive

masking tape

Black cardstock

Versamark ink

JudiKins opaque white embossing powder

Lucy's Little Things Rainbow Jewels

So Silk Beauty Pink cardstock

Technique of the Week: Stencil Kissing

In conjunction with the Art 'n Soul newsletter article "Technique of the Week" this week, I tried a technique called "Stencil Kissing." I got this technique from a customer (you know who you are). You may recall a previous technique called Stamp Kissing. This is similar, but uses a stencil to transfer the pattern, rather than a detailed stamp. A very detailed stencil is the best for this technique.



1. First, get a stamp with a lot of solid area. I used Magenta 0685.O Bird on Branch Silhouette.



2. I inked up the stamp with a range of Memento colors, starting with the lightest first (Dandelion, Canteloupe, Tangelo, Morocco, Potter's Clay, and Rhubarb Stalk). I wanted a variety of Fall colors for my image.



3. I chose several Magenta stencils to experiment with (TM140 Daisy Love; MC01 Blossoms; and one of the Zen Trio Templates TM54). The one I used to make into my card was TM140 Daisy Love.
 The pictures I'm showing here are using all three of these stencils.

4. Once my stamp was well inked, I stamped it down onto the stencil. This lifts some color from the stamp and leaves the pattern.



5. I then pressed the stamp onto a piece of white cardstock and the patterned image was transferred. 



6. I added a "Thinking of You" sentiment using Magenta 07.869.D, stamped in Memento Potter's Clay, and cut the image out using the Memory Box die MB 30036 Stitched Circle Layers (second largest size).



7. To finish the card, I mounted the image onto a piece of watercolor paper that was colored with Magenta Nuance colors in Bright Yellow, Golden Yellow, Grass Green and Jade. The colors were activated with "pearly water" (mixture of 2 oz water and 1/4 tsp perfect pearls powder).


8. The panel was adhered to a base card, and I sprinkled on a few sequins, sticking them down with Ranger Multi Medium matte adhesive. I did 3 stampings, and I absolutely love how all of them turned out. I hope you give this a try!

Magenta Stamps and Stencils used:

0685.O  Bird& Branch Silhouette

07.869.D Thinking of You

TM104  DaisyLove Stencil

MC01  BlossomMask

TM54  Zen TrioTemplates

Magenta Nuance colors used:

MNU-002  Bright Yellow

MNU-008 Golden Yellow

MNU-009  Grass Green

MNU-004  Jade

Other Products used:

Memento Inks: Dandelion, Canteloupe, Tangelo, Morocco, Potter's Clay, Rhubarb Stalk
Memory Box die: MB 30036 Stitched Circle Layers
Tim Holtz watercolor paper
Perfect Pearls Pearl powder
Various sequins
Ranger Multi Medium matte (the best thing for gluing sequins)
Neenah Solar white 110# card stock