Well and truly Distressed ....... I'm talking about the inks!!

Happy Monday!

And welcome to February ...... Valentine's Day is just around the corner.

I hope you all had a good weekend ..... thankfully no more of you lovely followers have disappeared over the last couple of days .... maybe the worst is over!

I've got another busy week ahead .... well its the start of a new month so that means new Blog Challenges will be set and of course Barbara is back on the telly at the weekend with new products from Clarity ..... so lots to get through

Before I head off to the old craft room and attempt to wake up the mojo,  I thought I'd share a little bit of the weekend with you.
I had a lovely day on Saturday with a fab bunch of crafty ladies ...... 10 of them .... sat round my dining table, having fun getting to grips with all things Distress .... inks that is!

We inked, we blended ... we splattered (although some were not too keen on splashing water and ink around ....... some  needed a little coaxing, but ..... we got there in the end!)
One of the examples shows just how pretty a few water splatters can look ......

We did the faux mother of pearl technique ... introduced to me by my good friend Loll (Stamping With Loll)  If you haven't tried this then give it a go ..... the results are stunning, and it's really easy to do. Check out Loll's tutorial on YouTube

Depending on the colours of inks you use .... it looks different every time.  Bold and bright ....

Love the shimmer .....

Or soft and pastel ....... this was the favourite I think ....

We played with stencils and Distress inks, spritzed through with pearl misters and plain old water to get different looks,  and we also used them to create backgrounds, building up the layered look

Using the same colours of ink all the way through ..... and adding in some stamping (and a bit more splattering!)

We even coloured the flowers using Distress ......

We finished off the day with a quick faux bleaching technique, using water again.

Simply stamped and embossed an image onto an inked background and then used clean water applied with a brush, and then dabbed over with some kitchen towel to remove the colour in places

They all went away with 3 cards ........ well nearly 3 cards, the last one wasn't quite finished, but looking at Facebook they're all having fun finishing them off at home, and using up all the backgrounds they made practicing each technique, to make some stunning cards.
They also put together a little tag book ..... a reminder of the techniques we covered, the colours we used etc. this was mine.  The techniques on one side ....... and notes made on the other.

We seemed to cover a lot, but we've only touched the surface on what you can do with Distress Inks. My advice is to just play with them ......  and see what you can do.

Oh well must dash ..... the old craft room is calling.  You'll probably hear quite a bit from me this week ....... there's a lot going on!

Thanks for popping by .... enjoy the rest of your day.  I hear that Storm Henry is on his way, it's supposed to hit our little island this afternoon. Strong winds .... which means no ferries and possible flight disruptions amongst other things..... fabulous!

Cheerio until next time

Linda

xx