Techneek of the Week - Lindsay's Technique

This week I'm going to show you a totally rad technique that my girl Lindsay "developed." Using a couple of alcohol inks, a felt applicator and a transparency you can create a beautiful, "stained glass" effect. And depending on what colours of ink you choose, you can create the perfect look to suit your page.

First and foremost, and I can't stress this enough, you should protect your workspace and your clothes.

Choose your colours. For this project I'm using Terra Cotta, Ginger, Cranberry and Pitch Black. You will also need an applicator. The one I'm using is made by Ranger, and has a nice wooden handle with velcro strip to attach the felt pads to. Make sure you have enough felt that you can use a different one for each colour. That way the colours won't get muddy.

Apply your first colour to the felt applicator, then stamp it onto the transparency.

Keep going with the first colour until you cover the area you want. You might want to have in mind a general "pattern" of where you want the colours to be. Don't apply it all over the transparency because the other colours won't stand out as well.

Leave the first colour to dry for a moment before adding the next colour. This way the colours won't totally blend together and get muddy. Use a new felt piece.

Apply this colour in the spaces you left when applying the first colour. You can leave more blank space to fill in with the next colours, but I didn't, as I knew I wanted to add the red and black only as accents.

The next colour I used was Cranberry, the red. I applied it along the edges where the two other colours meet. If you apply one colour into the other colour, it will blend a little and create those neat little circle patterns. Don't worry if the colour seems too bright or too strong a contrast now. Once you get all the colours on, you can go back and add more of one of the first two colours to further blend the contrasts out. Just remember to let things dry a little before moving on to the next step so the colours don't seep together and get muddy.

The last colour I added was the Pitch Black, and only as an accent along the edges. Even though I added very little, it seems very dark here. BUT...

I went back in with the Terra Cotta the Ginger to even out the contrast and create more depth of colour. The more layers you add the brighter the colours become, and now the red and black look like they belong!

The best way to perfect this technique is to PRACTICE it and play around with different colour combinations. Start small, with only a couple of colours, just to get the hang of blending and getting the colours to "get along" with each other without looking like mud.

I used the strip of transparency as if it were a regular pattern paper on this layout. By creating your own pattern paper with alcohol inks, you can customize it to your project. Plus it's super fun!!

Supplies:

• Bazzill cardstock
• Colour Conspiracy pattern paper (brown #21)
• Hambly transparency (gold at the top)
• Doodlebug and American Crafts letter stickers
• My Mind's Eye journaling spot
• Kaiser Crafts brown bling star
• Assorted ribbon
• Ranger alcohol inks