Spirited Snowmen (CT #163)

09/04/2018

Did you see my post yesterday for the What's New at SU? blog hop? If not check it out at Spirited Snowmen. There were so many beautiful projects! I can't wait to make some of them! I did the same technique on this card as I did on the card I posted for the blog hop yesterday. This technique is called Ink Block technique and is very easy to do. There is a little trick to getting the colors to blend, but I will explain that further down on my post.

I made this card for my CASEing Tuesday challenge this week. Here is the card that is our inspiration:

This post is going to be a little long as I got a lot of emails and comments about how I made it. I am happy to share the directions with you, so here they are:

stamp the 4" x 5 1/4" Whisper White with the Buffalo Check background stamp using Balmy Blue ink

On a different piece of 4" x 5 1/4" Whisper White paper you are going to stamp your background for the snowman. To do this you will:

take the Balmy Blue ink pad and ink up one half of an "E" clear block. The easiest way to do this is to hold the block in your left hand and then have the ink pad in your right hand and tap it on the block. You want to make sure you are putting a lot of ink on it.
do the same thing on the other end of the block with Smoky Slate ink
using the Spritzer (with water in it) you will spray the block (with the ink on it) about 4-5 times

This is the little tip I have for you. Make sure you are putting on enough water, but not too much to make it drip. It took me numerous attempts to finally figure out what I wasn't getting the look I wanted. If you stamp it and have white spots, that means you don't have enough water on it. I also learned that if you put too much water on it, it will drip and leave drip marks on your image.

once you spritzed it with the water, you will flip over your block and push it hard on your paper.

You will see it blend together through your block. It is so neat to watch it do that! You now need to let it dry completely. You can use a heating tool if you want or wait about 10-15 minutes. This is when I am working on other aspects of the card, such as cutting out the snowflake and getting my stamp and ink ready to stamp.

The next step is adding the White Frost shimmer paint.

I used an old block I had, one I didn't care if it got messed up, and poured about 2-3 drops of shimmer paint on it. I then used a sponge and tapped the paint all over the stamped image. I then blended it all together to give it a real shiny look and then let it dry again. I did use shimmer paint on my snowflake too.
after it is dry then you can stamp your image and sentiment. I used Stazon ink as I wanted a real crisp look and I knew it would stay on.
add your other layers to the card base (I used Stampin Dimensionals under the black layer), stamped image and then your embellishments last.

This isn't a hard technique, actually it is very easy. The hardest thing is learning how much water to put on it. I would suggest to practice a few times on copy paper first, before you use your good Whisper White cardstock.

I tried to get a picture so you could see how shiny it is, but I just couldn't get it to come out. You can see it a little on the bottom by the snowflake. It is really pretty in the person.

I hope these directions will help you when you try to do this technique. I love it so much, I want to keep doing it. LOL