Distress Oxide Trials – one or two colours

As I’ve been reading your comments about distress oxide inks I have noticed some of you are not sure you want them so have held off or only bought one or two to try. I decided to see what I could do with just one or two colours. I’ve been having so much fun with about half the colours I haven’t even opened them all yet and sadly spiced marmalade is currently hiding somewhere in my messy busy and productive workroom. All that to say, if you only have one or two colours, do some experimenting with them anyway; you might be surprised.

This green themed card is inked with only peeled paint distress oxide ink and yet there is a light and dark teal green, and dark and light olive tones as well. I was pretty impressed. I think the key to this effect is in the layering of colour. I pressed my ink pad on my craft mat, spritzed the ink then swiped my embossed panel through the ink. Colour only partially filled the panel; I dried it then repeated the process over and over. Each layer of ink reacts with the ink already on the paper and the un-inked areas on the paper. I also did some splattering of ink and water and some dabbing of water with a paper towel to lift a bit of colour. Because my panel was embossed I had to be careful not to reheat the embossing too much so I kept the heat tool moving. I love the effect around this ‘blips’ background stamp. A friend of mine used this stamp with great results recently by sprinkling brusho over the embossed image. Seeing her lovely card reminded me I had this stamp tucked away.

My second card uses only two distress oxide inks, worn lipstick and fired brick. I was hoping to do cards in just one colour but I wasn’t getting the same variety of colours from worn lipstick. My guess is that I spoiled my chances by covering the whole panel with my first layer of diluted ink rather than just part of the panel. I did manage to build up some different pinks over the top of the first layer but the differences were not as dramatic as shown on the green above. I will try again and use the same partial inking technique over and over and see what happens.

I did still manage to get some nice colour trapped inside the embossing creating light and dark petals and leaves. To provide just a bit more contrast I swiped it through some fired brick diluted ink a few times. When I press my ink on my craft mat then spritz it lightly it forms little beads of ink. Swiping through them spreads colour across the panel but pressing the paper down on top picks up little dots of ink, another cool effect I think.

I finished both cards with embossed sentiment banners and a few embellishments.

I have a growing list of suggestions from readers to try next week. Thanks for all your encouragement, tips and questions.

Supplies

Stamps: Felicity, Blips, Amazing!, Special Thoughts (PB)
Dies: Triple Banner, Shades
Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, Neenah natural white and epic black cardstock
Inks: versamark (Tsukineko) Distress oxide peeled paint, worn lipstick, fired brick (Ranger)
Also:  WOW clear embossing powder, Studio Katia sparkling crystals, Simple stories enamel dots