Inky Dirty...a Tutorial

I love, love, love, Tim Holtz Distress Inks! So was I ever thrilled when Suzanne called to tell me they were thinking of adding Ranger Products to the Flamingo Scraps store. It really is a rare day that I do a project without something on it getting inked up. The Distress Inks can be used in so many different ways. In this layout, I used them for many different things.

I used Walnut Stain, Mustard Seed, Tumbled Glass and Spun Sugar to color a plain sheet of kraft paper. They gave the background a beautiful, suede like texture.

The key here is to layer the colors.  Start with the lightest colors and add on.  I always find I don't add near enough color at first.  One of the best things about these inks is how well they blend.  Just keep adding and blending till you get the desired look.  (I like to use the Tim Holtz blending tool with foam pads, but you can use a make up sponge, pieces of cut up foam, whatever works best for you.)

On the petals, you can see how I blended the same colors to make the rose. Remember, one of the great things about Distress Inks is that you can just keep blending and adding colors until you get the result you want.

And finally, did you know that you can use the inks to color metal and pearls? I have found that if you heat the item first, getting it really nice and hot, the ink will stick. Those pearls and flowers you see....they were the white Prima Say it in Pearls and Roses.

On this project I also used the Distress Inks. I went much more heavy handed and darker with the colors. And I inked just about everything in site. Don't worry that when you ink brown ink over brown paper or blue ink over blue paper that you won't be able to see it. You can! It gives the color much more depth.

The sheet of die cut paper was the back side of a bright, red orange. I just flipped it over to get white and then started inking away. I then inked all the other pieces of paper with the color of the paper. So the brown paper got brown ink, the blue paper got blue ink and the green photo mat....you guessed it, green ink. Lots of tearing and curling as well. Boy layouts can be such a struggle for me, I just need texture. hee hee I also inked the embossed chipboard and grungeboard to make it, more grungy.

Well, I hope I have encouraged you to get your hands dirty with some ink. I would love to see what you do with yours. Leave me a link and I will for sure come by to check it out.

Hugs.

Nancy