Share the Love Week Featuring Distress Inks | Day 1

Hello, hello, hello!  Welcome to the first day of our Share the Love Week featuring Tim Holtz Distress Ink by Ranger!  This is a week-long love fest where we focus on a company or product we adore and show how smitten we are by using our featured love with w&w products!

Tim Holtz Distress Ink are a fabulous product line brought to you by Ranger and the incomparable Tim Holtz.  They have unique properties which make them a terrific tool for creating fantastic projects.  We will be showing you a few ways to play with your Distress Inks this week, but by no means are they all of the wonders possible.  We recommend, if you haven't already, stalking following Tim Holtz's site and Ranger's site for more information and inspiration.

This time around we want you...yes, you...to participate with us for a chance to win some awesome prizes.

Our first day kicks off with what will surely be a very popular challenge: Watercolor/Watercolour!

Before we get to how you can participate to win, let's see what Julie, Shay and The Talent have made.

Julie

It's Share the LOVE week {insert huge smiley face here}!  Are you ready to get inky???  I love to get inky, especially with Distress Inks!  Today I am sharing a really fun way to get a water-colored background using Distress Inks and lots and lots of water! If you haven't tried this, you are in for a treat!

These are cards for my One Little Word project (a la Ali Edwards) and I wanted to hand write short statements on a cute and subtle background.  Distress Inks to the rescue!  I took several of my favorite w&w stamps and inked them with Versamark Ink and embossed them with clear EP on watercolor paper. (This technique does not require watercolor paper, but I knew I would be adding a lot of water, and I wanted my project to hold up to all of the spritzing that was about to happen.)

Cards 1 & 2 - flowers from The Write Stuff:  Leave it to Mom and confetti dots from Scenery: Big Bang Confetti

Cards 3 through 6 -  more Scenery: Big Bang Confetti (stars, circles and sci fi stars) and hearts from The Write Stuff: Love Story and You've Got Love Mail.

Once the embossed areas were cool, I inked up my my craft sheet with distress inks, just tapping the colors on the sheet randomly in an area just slightly larger than my paper.  I sprayed water over the ink until the water look like medium sized beads.  I then put my paper down on the watery ink and pressed and "smooshed" (you know it is a technical term) until I felt the card was sufficiently covered.  I turned it over and dried it with my heat tool.  If one area looked muddy, I used a paper towel to dab the excess. If an area needed more color, I either put the dried paper back into the ink again, or used a brush to add ink from the mat to the areas of the card that needed more color, and then dried again with the heat tool.  I love the look of the pooled ink inside the shapes.  It there wasn't enough color there, I definitely added more.

The soft blended backgrounds and the cute border accents on these cards are perfect for my personal journaling.  I think I will make more of these for my other albums too, and maybe try it on some Bristol paper as well.  It can definitely handle the excess water.  This technique is quick and easy, and yields some fantastic results.  I hope you liked this one and decide to get inky with us!!!

Shay



I began by stamping the frame from The Write Stuff: Leave it to Dad in black ink on a journaling card by Studio Calico.  I made a mask of the frame and then filled the inside in with the flowers and leaves from The Big, the Bold and Extras.  I made a mask of each the flower so I could have some depth in how the flowers stamped.  I then painted in the flowers with a water brush and Distress Ink that I smeared upon my non-stick craft sheet by Ranger.  Distress Inks are wonderful for watercoloring and blend wonderfully.  In the yellow family I used squeezed lemonade, mustard seed and wild honey.  In the pink family I used spun sugar, worn lipstick and festive berries.  In the green family I used iced spruce, evergreen bough and mowed lawn.  The blue inside the frame is stormy sky.  The frame is painted in with tumbled glass, broken china and chipped sapphire.

The outline banner from The Big, the Bold and Extras is painted in with the yellows listed above.  The sentiment is from Bubble Talk.  After cutting out the banner I edged it with a black Sharpie.  I attached the banner using dimensional foam adhesive.

The note is from The Write Stuff: Love Story and is colored in with evergreen bough and mowed lawn.

On the white card base I stamped the large and medium solid faceted sequins from Scenery: Big Bang Bling.  I attached the journaling card with washi.  And there you have the card.



Now that you have seen what Julie and I have created, wait until you see the glory that The Talent has made today!  We hope you take the challenge and play along.  Keep on reading to see how you can join in and win!

The Talent

CLICK HERE to see more about Gayatri's project.

CLICK HERE to see more about Laura's project.

CLICK HERE to see more about Mayuri's project.

CLICK HERE to see more about Vanessa's project.

>>>THE CHALLENGE<<<

Want to win a care package by Ranger?  Ranger has generously donated a prize of a mini ink blending tool, replacement foam and two (2) sets of Distress Ink minis.  Wow, that is awesome!

You have two (2) ways you can win:

1. You can comment once on this post; and/or
2. You can create a new watercolor/watercolour project using Distress Inks + at least one (1) w&w product (this can include stamps, cut files, digital products and/or one of our freebies found on our website or for our Facebook fans) and add it to the Link-up tool found below. You may enter as many times as you wish while the challenge remains open.

We will randomly pick a winner from the comments and challenge entries that are entered by Sunday, July 13, 2014 at 11:55 p.m. CST.

An InLinkz Link-up

w&w supplies:

Bubble Talk	Scenery: Big Bang Bling	Scenery: Big Bang Confetti	The Big, the Bold and Extras
The Big, the Bold and You	The Write Stuff: Leave it to Dad	The Write Stuff: Leave it to Mom	The Write Stuff: Love Story
The Write Stuff: Picture Perfect	You've Got Love Mail

InLinkz.com