12 Brands of Christmas *Brand 5* Dr P H Martin

Hello!

Welcome to day five of our 12 Products of Christmas!

Today, we're showcasing... 

 Dr P H Martins Bombay inks are a great addition to any crafty stash! The inks are lightfast, waterproof Indian inks, which hold a line without spreading. The inks give a strong opaque colour, and are ideal for calligraphy, drawing, and any kind of mixed media application!

The range has a fabulous array of colours:

From the bright and vibrant to subtle vintage tones....

The inks are sold individually in a 30ml bottle (with integral dropper), or in sets of 15ml vials, as in the picture.

Dr P H Martin inks can be found HERE in the shop over at A Sprinkle Of Imagination!

I love using these inks, and you can find many projects on the blog where I've used them. I love the fact that they are waterproof once dry, you can layer them to your hearts content with no worries of any bleeding, and the gorgeous colours are right up my street! One of my favourite techniques is a very simple one, simply add a drop or two of ink, then spritz with water. Dry immediately, and you have a gorgeous background..

Don't forget about our wonderful prize on offer during our Christmas event, simply leave a comment for EACH of our 12 Designers of Christmas over the whole month, and you'll be in with a chance of winning a bumper prize: 12 products, one product from each featured brand we are showcasing throughout the month! Missed a designer? Simply scroll back though the blog to make sure you have commented on each one.

You will have all of December to leave your comments, we will be announcing the winner on Twelfth Night (just to continue with our '12' theme!..... that's actually January 6th!)

See you tomorrow for another stunning project from one of our 12 Designers of Christmas!

'Old School' 3 -Salt!

Hello!
Another old favourite inky technique today, although this time I've only used bits of the background created on my final piece! My finished creation is this page...

The bright red poppy heads are the product of todays spotlight technique: Salt backgrounds!
Adding rock salt to wet ink is a great way to create fab texture and interest, and it's really simple too!
Step1: Prepare! The is messy, so put your card down on a wipe clean surface.

Step 2: Spray! (or drip...) Any drippy ink will work for this, acrylic inks, ink sprays, stains, you name it. I knew I was going to use the result for a poppy head, so I sprayed in just the one colour. You can go as bonkers with the colours as you want!

Step 3: Reactivate the inks with a little more water so the surface is nice and wet...

Step 4: Add on the rock salt...

Step 5: Spray with a little more water to make sure the salt has a nice wet bond with the surface..

Step 6: Now you can go one of two ways. Leave it to dry by itself, or blast with a heat gun. Drying naturally gives nice results...but for the impatient.....Blast with the heat gun!

Step 7: Once ALL the ink is dry, wait until the cardstock and salt is cool. It's really quite surprising how hot salt gets! Once cold, rub off the salt...

Step 8: Admire the fab textures and design the salt creates!

I then cut circles from my salty background, and added seed beads to the centres to give me my poppies.

I typed straight onto an old book page to give me my title...

Which was very apt, because I wanted to doodle my way around the rest of the piece, no stamps at all. I was a bit hesitant about letting go and creating the stems and leaves of my poppies, so really needed to believe in myself!

I *think* it worked, but need a lot more playing about until I'm confident!
Have a go with the salt, its a really nice technique!

See you soon,
Trish xxxxx

Drippy and wet.....

No, not me personally!!!
Hello!
I have an messy inky background technique to share today, the background I used to make this...

Make sure your work surface is covered, and put gloves on if you don't like getting very inky!
We need to prepare the surface first. As we are going to be using lots of water and ink, the surface needs to be sealed, so give a chipboard square plenty of gesso layers to begin with! I wanted a little texture and pattern on the background, so got out the texture paste and the stencils......

(Yes, I know, white on white makes for a great picture.......)
Next, get out your inks! Now, you can use any ink for this technique (paint too), but I much prefer acrylic inks. They dry to a permanent finish so you can layer them without any mixing and muddying of colours, which is a very good thing! The other benefit is that I find they are much more light fast than other spray inks can be. I like to look at a project months down the line and for it to still be the same colour as it was when I made it!
So....drip on a drop of ink...

Then spray with water. As you play about with this technique, you'll get a feel for how much water you want on the surface. I would say, start out with a little bit at first, then you don't drown the project! You can always add more....

Now tilt the surface so the inky water moves about...

Move it about until you're happy, then dry it off. Add more of the same colour to fill in some gaps....

Again dry it off. Drying in between layers not only stops colours mixing and running, it also stops the surface from getting too waterlogged!
Second colour...

Add the water...

This time I added a little more water, and let most run off to colour a larger area..

Dry off again, and add another colour...this time I used red to complement to yellow and pink...

Once that was dried, I thought it needed a 'pop' colour.....turquoise!

Squirt on the water...

Let it run off....

Add more if you feel it needs it, then dry off for a final time...

Once it it totally dry, you will notice the colours lighten slightly, you can see this if I put a finished pic next to the just inked pic above..

For some reason, the red seems to lighten the most....weird....
Anyway.... I did a little printing and stamping on the background...

I also painted white circles, and melted white UTEE for a splattered look...

Because the background is so busy, I wanted the focal image to stay black and white...

My 'go to' Stampotique girl, with added text stamping in her dress!
Lots of messy detail, and a nice way to play around and make some backgrounds!
Have a nice Friday everyone!
Trish xxxx

Find Joy In The Ordinary...

Hello!
A simple painty panel from me today, this is a result of a little experiment!
I wanted to see if I could dye crackle paste....

Turns out, you can!
I created a quick and easy smeared paint background on a Tando panel, using blue, yellow and white paint. A little white paint stencilling through some sequin waste..

I then put a little crackle medium in a foil dish, and added some Bombay Ink. Mixed it together, then applied it through a circle stencil...

I found the colour intensity varied depending on the thickness of the paste, but I really like that effect, as well as the crackle! I did a little doodling, both around the circles, and around the edge of the panel..

Rub On words to finish.....

Another successful messy experiment!
Trish xxx

Converse with spirits!

Hello!
A little quirky assemblage from me today!......

I found the phrase in an old book, I definitely think the hare may be looking skyward trying to find someone to talk to!
I documented the process, so you can see how it was put together.
The bright colours come from inks, India inks and Acrylic inks. Bright enough to make an impact, but translucent so the book text shows through perfectly. I watered the ink slightly, then sponged it over my pages...

I dried the page, then glued it to a bit of card. I then glued another page of a different colour to the back of the card, giving me double sided, multicoloured text!

I then drew some leaf/petal/long arch shapes on the text. Totally random, although I did make sure there were some larger than others. I doodled on them too...

I cut them out, flipped them over and doodled on the other side...

The edges need to be coloured...

Next, I stamped the hare (Crafty Individuals) onto plain text, and again onto a scrap of the yellow. I cut the crown from the yellow....

Then stuck the hare to some card to give it more stability, then cut that out too.....

Glue the yellow crown over the plain one, then once dry the hare can be stuck to the stand, which in this case is a wooden spool. I use a cube bead to do this, glue the bead to the spool...

Then the hare is glued to the flat face of the cube....

Then, I attached the petal shapes. First, glue the smallest shapes around the spool....

The larger shapes were glued in a second layer on top of the small petals..

Once done, the hare will be nearly hidden!

Start to gently roll the shapes up, I rolled them around a pencil to get them to curl nicely! Once done, the hare will once again come into view....

The need for a double sided petal becomes more obvious when they are curled, and the contrast between different colours on the same shape comes into it's own....

I had a couple of shapes left, so glued these to the base of the spool, then I added my phrase..

As a finishing touch, I tied a little black cord around the petal shapes. Not needed in a functional sense, just a final decorative touch!

I hope you like my quirky hare, I have been creating lots of assemblage recently, and I love it!
See you soon!
Trish xxx