A Recipe For Inkyness!

...yesterday I was a-mooching around yonder Facebook, you know, as you do for several hours and I happened across a post by my mate Lou who was saying she needed a challenge cos she was sitting around doing nowt.  Well, never one to pass up the opportunity to get peeps all inky, I gave her a list of stuff to use, recipe like, and said Go!   And then I thought to myself that actually, I could do with a bit of a challenge too, so I grabbed my inks and got playing.  Here's the list of stuff in the recipe: A tag, Distress Ink using Broken China, Spiced Marmalade, Pine Needles, use three different stamps, use die cuts and some ribbon.

 Out came the DI's to start with... what on earth was I thinking!!!  Pine Needles!!! Pine Needles usually has me running for the hills as it is a lovely colour but it is just that... colour!!!  A deep pine blue/green (you guessed that already from the name tho right?)  And orange too!  How did I come up with the ink colours?  I just typed the first three that came into my head.   I started off by blending the three inks over a tag base, making sure it was thoroughly inked and then I spritzed a Tim flourish stamp with water and pressed this onto the tag to get a bleached stamping effect.  It helps if the ink is a "thick" layer and always keep the stamp in place for about 30 seconds, this makes sure the water eats through the ink.  A quick zap with a heat tool to dry it and then onto the next bit of stamping: namely the script (my fave script from Letters To Santa by Tim) using Pine Needles to stamp over the tag.  I then re-inked the flourish with Watering Can Archival (ok, smidge of a cheat here but it is like bunging a handful of glace cherrries into a cake mix... isn't it?)  

On to the sentiment, which is the third stamp.  I have had the new Tim stamp phrases for a few weeks now and not had a chance to play properly and this one in particular has been whispering at me to use it.  Isn't it just lovely!  And, I kept singing the words, over and over, annoyingly not knowing why I was singing them.  Then it dawned on me!  Elton John!  So I sang the rest of the song, you know, just because I could and a little sing song always lifts my spirits.  Not sure the neighbours would agree but hey, they can always close their windows...   The card was inked slightly differently for the sentiment - I didn't want it as dark as the background tag.  I squidged the ink pads onto my craft sheet and lightly misted with water, dipping and dragging the card through the inkyness, drying and then lightly blending over the top with more inks, not re-inking the blending foam so I didn't over do it.  The sentiment is stamped in Jet Black Archival (ok, another cheat but you needs a black ink for a sentiment I always thinks)  The flowers are Kaisercraft Sea Spray blooms, inked with a smidge of Pine Needles and the leaves were left over from my CC3C tag the other day, I just gave them a bit of dimension by bending the leaves a bit.  Finishing touches were the Linen Ribbon (ohlalalaaa... seriously my FAVE new ribbon! You can pull at it and distress it and make it look yonks old!) and a few bits of Idea-ology.

Anyways, I was thinking, *don't worry, I was sitting down* if you too are a little bored and Mr Mojo has gone off in a huff, feel free to lift the recipe and have a play yourself, I would love to see what you makes :O)   I shall away now... I am knee deep in sample making for my tellybox shows on Tuesday next... brand new stamps and stencils and I am getting a smidge excited using them!!!    Thanks for looking, have a fabby day!  TTFN

Hels x