2014 Technique Calendar - April - Wet & Wild!

2014 Technique Calendar
April
Wet & Wild

O.k...keep your clothes on...it's far too cold in Indiana to be thinkin' about the beach BUT April in Indiana is wet...VERY wet!  You know the old saying April Showers bring May Flowers...well it's very true here as I'm sure it is for much of the country here in the US.   So I was experimenting with some ways to create a wet rainy showery look for April's calendar tag and I think I've come up with something pretty cool looking.

Supplies:

Re-Inker (2-3 colors)
Water - lots of water
Tag
Glitter (optional)
Embellishments (to finish your calendar page off)

Instructions:

1. Start off by saturating the tag with lots of water....you can see from the photo it's covered.

2. Add a couple of drops of re-inker to the water.  I used 3 different colors of Distress Ink.  You will notice that the inks immediately begin to spread.

3. Hold the tag down and shift the tag slightly to help the inks move and flow in the water. This step will be very easy since we applied so much water in step 1.

4. Begin heating your tag to dry the inks and water quickly.  As the paper begins to soak up the paper you will see your watery look come to life.  Shift the inks while heating if desired.

And here's what my tag looked like at this point...

5. Now it looks o.k. but we're going to give it a bit more of a rainy look.  Pounce a distress ink pad onto an acrylic stamping block.  The distress ink will bead up almost immediately which is exactly what you want.

6. Mist the ink with one or two pumps of water...not too much ~ we're going very sparingly with the water this time.  You can see there are a few larger drops of water and lots of tiny ones...

7. Immediately press the inky stamping block onto the tag several times...

8. Heat to quickly dry these dots of ink.  

You can see how this second layer of ink has really added to the "water/rainy" feel.

Just what we were lookin' for!

9. (optional) If you want to add a bit of sparkle to your rainy day spread a bit of Stickles or other glitter glue over the tag.  Of course I did but it's totally up to you and the look you're going for.

And here's my finished tag!

I think I may add a bit of stickles to the girls outfits but I didn't want to wait to share it with you.

O.k...

a third of the way through the year...

How ya doing?  

Are you playin' along?

Are you keepin' up or am I going too fast?

Hope you're stayin' inky either way :)