STAMPIN' BLENDS AND ALCOHOL

Oh, how I wish you could see the effect of this background in real life! This technique has been around for awhile, but it seems like I've been seeing it on the Internet more often recently. So I thougght I'd try my hand at it.

I'm not sure what anyone has decided to call it, but, to tell the truth, it is almost meditative to do. And, as you can see in these photos, the end results can be stunning.

The creator has a only minimal amount of control when doing this technique, which, to me, adds to its intrigue. You're never sure what you are going to end up with. That's ME speaking. I have seen gorgeous work online where the end result is a rose or some sort of flower. Maybe with practice I could get there someday. But me? I am almost more delighted with the happy accidents that occur when doing something like this. I like the spontaneity of such a technique. And if you don't like where it's going, just keep on keeping on. If you are careful with your colors, I really don't think you can over do it.

I can almost hear you asking: "Well, Linda, don't keep us in suspense! Tell us how to do it!"

To get this beautiful marbled look, you only need a few items: vellum, alcohol (no, not the drinking kind!), a heat tool and -- yay! -- Stampin' Blends! Before I started my experiments, I'd thought maybe the softer, lighter shades of the Blends would work better. I quickly discovered that I was wrong. Early on, I moved on to the dark tones of the colors I chose. The lighter colors didn't show up very well against the vellum.

There are lots of videos online on how to proceed with whatever this technique is called. I searched for Stampin' Blends and alcohol on vellum. I watched a few, then decided to proceed on my own. So, the way I do it is probably very different from what you may find in your search.

My first few tries incorporated three colors that played well together, such as pink, orange and yellow. The result was OK, but not wonderful. This card uses a few shades of reds and pinks. 

To get started, choose your colors of Stampin' Blends and make a few blobs, circles, marks, whatever, across your piece of vellum. The vellum I worked with was a quarter sheet, so 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". Then I could trim it to whatever size I needed after I finished. 

I had found a couple of bottles with needle type tips so a fine amount of liquid could be dispensed. I put some alcohol into these bottles, and ran the alcohol through these blobs, then took the heat tool to them. The blowing heat helps to move the inks around, blend, streak, vein, all sorts of cool actions. As I said previously, you can always add more and keep on with the heat until you are happy. I worked probably about 20 minutes on the background I used on the card in this post.

This is not tedious work whatsoever. As I noted previously, it is almost meditative. If you are having a stressful day, this would be a great way to calm down. And you'll have something lovely after the calming process.

Since vellum is so difficult to work with when trying to put it in its place, I decided to try a different approach to adhere it, at least for me. I used a couple dies from the Scalloped Contours set (page 158 in the Annual Catalog) to make a cool frame from Cherry Cobbler cardstock. Without worrying about glue showing I was able to adhere the edges of the vellum to the back of this frame, then I just glued the frame to the card base.

The photo below shows the beautiful maple leaf I cut from a metallic cardstock. I used a die that has since retired. I am so sad at this retirement, however, because I find this leaf (and the snowflakes that came in the set ) to be so lovely. I still use the dies often, retired or not. Isn't that why we purchase things, to use them into the future? 

I did make another card, similar to this one, only featuring blues with a snowflake, that I will share with you in a future post. Even though I have several marble-y background now, I have only made the two cards so far. 

Have you tried this technique? If so, were you satisfied with your results? Did you use the backgrounds in any particular creation(s)? Do you think you will give it a try?

Marbled

Smiles.