Doodling with Debby: Distress Oxide Ink Blending
Hi friends! Happy Sunday! Thanks for stopping by the blog today! Please join me in welcoming back special monthly guest Debby Hughes in our Doodling with Debby blog series! Be sure to watch the video for more information and enjoy!
Hi, it’s Debby here, and for my Doodling With Debby video feature this month I’m ink blending Distress Oxides over a heat embossed background image. When I first saw the new Round & Round Background set my first thought was how stunning it would look with each of the circles watercolored so that the overlapping watercolored areas formed new colors as the transparent layers combined. I made this card just as the new release from Simon Says Stamp was coming out and I saw that Shari Carroll had made such a card and it does look stunning! You should check that card out, I’ve always loved Shari’s designs they are spot on. I still wanted to use the Round & Round Background set though, and so I put my thinking cap on as to how I wanted to use it. I remembered a combination of Distress Oxide colors that Kristina Werner used the other day and thought they would be fun blended over the circles if they were white heat embossed.
So to get this card started, I placed a 5.5 by a 5.5-inch piece of hot pressed watercolor card in the Misti, I treated the card with an antistatic powder bag to prevent embossing powder sticking where I didn’t want it to and then stamped the image in clear embossing ink. Even though I’m using a hot-pressed watercolor card for its smooth texture, I still stamped this several times to get a good impression before sprinkling with white embossing powder and heat setting. Next, I pulled out the Distress Oxide colors I wanted to use – Squeezed Lemonade, Abandoned Coral, Tumbled Glass and Seedless Preserves. As I blend these colors over the card they will combine to form new hues and most of these colors will be fine to mix together, red and yellow for example will make orange, but two colors I don’t want to combine are purple and yellow as these are complementary colors and combined they will go a muddy color.
To blend the colors onto the card, I’m used a Picket Fence blending brush. I like these brushes for smooth blending and tend to use the largest one from the set. To keep it clean as I swop from one color to another, I used a baby wipe and rubbed the color off the bristles with the wipe and then dried it on a microfibre cloth. And that gets the bristles lovely and clean and soft and ready for ink blending. If you’ve ever had trouble blending inks before then, please give this combination a go as it makes the inks go on like butter.
As I blended the inks over the heat embossed circles, the Squeezed Lemonade combined with the Abandoned Coral to give a beautiful orange where they overlapped. As I moved on to Tumbled Glass, my color theory was ringing alarm bells for me again because blue and orange are complementary colors and I’d blended the orange area right next to the area I wanted to use the blue. To make sure these didn’t combine to a muddy color, I kept the area where they overlapped to a minimum before moving on to the Seedless Preserves. I finished the blending with an extra going over with the yellow and blue as the stronger red, and purple colors had slightly dominated these colors, and then I gently rubbed over the whole of the card with the microfiber cloth to remove any of the ink on the white embossed lines and bring them back to their bright white color.
I spritzed the card with a mini mister filled with water. Distress Oxides are water reactive, and when they come into contact with water, they seem to come to life to me. The color becomes more vibrant and although the colors are well blended anyway this extra spritz of water, helps to combine them more. I had a heat tool continuously moving over the piece to dry the areas as I spritzed more water, and I kept going with this process until I have a seamless blend of colors.
I liked this vibrant, smooth blend of colors, but if you know me, I also love the texture you get from splatters and so I started by splattered the card with the tube from the mini mister. I left the water droplets on the card for a moment to react with the Distress Oxides and then used a paper towel to mop up the liquid and the inks that it draws with it to leave lighter highlight spots. I then pressed each of the colors of Distress Oxide onto my glass mat and combined a little water on a brush and then splattered the mixture over the different areas. As Distress Oxides are opaque, the splatters sit on top of the background and still show up even if you have, for example, yellow over a darker red area. I also splattered with a mixture of Perfect Pearls for added sparkle and then finished off by putting a little white gouache on my mat and again adding a little water until the combination was of consistency to splatter but still being thick enough to be opaque and leave white splatters over the card.
I made sure the background was fully dry before using a Rounded Corner Rectangles die to cut a card front from the panel. I think the rounded corners go well with the circular design of the heat embossed background and I love the blend of colors and all that splatter over the top. So now with the background made it is time to turn this into a card.
I picked a greeting from the Home Sweet Home set from Simon Says Stamp, and I thought this sentiment would work well white heat embossed on a circle of vellum to continue the circle theme of the background. I placed a piece of Simon Says Stamp vellum in the Mini Misti and stamped the greeting in clear embossing ink and sprinkled with white embossing powder before heat setting. Then I aligned a Nested Circles die around the greeting and ran it through my die cutting machine. This circle is more or less the perfect size of one of the heat embossed circles on the background and so I aligned the vellum over that circle and then folded the excess over onto the back of the card and secured with washi tape. I’ve often been asked how to adhere vellum to a card, and there are various methods such as folding it around the card, sewing it in place, using a clip or a staple and also as I did which was to hide adhesive behind the vellum by placing small pieces of foam tape behind the white embossed greeting.
I added foam adhesive to the back of the panel and adhered it to a side folding A2 card cut and scored from Ivory card. I find the color of Ivory card tones better with the white embossing than a stark white. I love to add accents to finish a card off and for this card I’ve picked a few colors from the Nuvo Crystal Drops range; Pink Orchid, Duck Egg Blue, Bubblegum Blush, and Sugared Almond as well as Nuvo Crystal Gems. I chose to concentrate the Crystal Drops in the areas where they coordinated with the Distress Oxide colors, so most of the Pink Orchid drops are over the SeedlessPreserves area, the Bubblegum Blush over the Abandoned Coral, the Sugared Almond over the Squeezed Lemonade and the Duck Egg Blue over the Tumbled Glass. I then finished off by adding in a few Crystal Gems of varying sizes for some added sparkle. I used a Crystal Katana tool to help me pick up the gems and then kept them in place with Gina K Connect Glue.
Thanks for joining me today, and I’ll see you next time for Doodling With Debby.
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Thanks so much for stopping by and thanks to Debby for being our special guest!
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WOW! An awesome card! So much detail and the color choices in EVERYTHING are really nice. Thank you so much for the video. I love that circle stamp so now I guess I have to go shopping.
Wow! I don’t know where to start…. I love everything about the card. I especially like the look of the ink blending over the white embossed circle patterns. The drops and spatters are the icing on the already beautiful cake. Always enjoy your videos.
Beautiful color combination. Stunning card
The level of detail is what makes this card so special. The wonderful distress oxide inks sprinkled with water, the Nuvo drops, gems, vellum, die cut panel, there’s so much to appreciate!
Wow, such a gorgeous card, love the choice of colors.
Love the play of colors and the way you have done the sentiment on vellum.
Love this beautiful card, Debby! I have ordered that stamp and am eagerly awaiting its arrival. So gorgeous.
Lovely card, love the background stamp and the way you finished off the card with Nuvo crystal drops.
Beautiful! I love ink blended backgrounds, and your embellishments are spot on also!
This is so pretty! Thank you for the video. I am afraid to get background stamps because I am not sure what they really add to a card or they won’t really show up. Thank you for showing how to use these to their full advantage.
Simply gorgeous!!
I always enjoy Debby’s Doodling…the color combo background shows the embossed circles and sentiment so well. “two thumbs up”…tfs
Amazing creation, Debby–love all the splatters & embellishments with that beautiful background!
What an awesome card! I love the muted colors- I didn’t know that watercolor paper would make the colors more muted; thanks for the tip! I love this Round and Round background stamp!
I love your splatters… perfect pearls is going in my cart!
Beautiful card! Love that background! Great tip of bending vellum over to the back. Thanks.
Fabulous card and great detailed instructions too!
What great colors. I like the design of the circles…
The Nuvo drops look great–it is very eye catching.
GORGEOUS WORK, Debby!!! It almost has a cosmic feel to it! JUST GORGEOUS!!! ;)<3
Thanks Simon Says Stamp for providing the products we need and Debby for the great inspiration so that we can be creative, too! This is beautiful and I always learn something from Debby’s videos!
This is such a beautiful card!! I love the color choices used for ink blending. Looks fabulous with the white embossed circles.
So, so lovely. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Such a fun card!
Learned some great tips from your video. Love how you achieved the colors in the background and your splatter technique. Creative idea for using the Round & Round stamp. Super cool card.
Your card is amazing! I love that background stamp and love how you used it!
What a beauty!
What a cool background!
Stunning card! Thanks, Debby.
Beautiful card! Such gorgeous colours!
Scrumptious colors! Love this pretty card! I just got a small set of the blender brushes from Picket Fence to try out, so I appreciate the tips you shared!
Such wonderful card using such fun techniques!
What a gorgeous card! I just love how you created this beautiful background! :)
Wow! Fabulous ink blending! What an awesome card! :)
Luscious colors for this fabulous card! I love all the spatters and extra drops of color. Beautiful card, Debby.
What a beautiful card. I love that blended background! Thanks for sharing this with us.
wow love how you used these distress inks to create this amazing background
Terrific card and video. This card is bright and fun. I’ll have to try warm press and get some oxides for sure! Thanks.
Beautiful card!
Beautiful card, beautiful ink blending. I love the Round and Round background stamp and your design is lovely.
So very pretty!! I need some oxide inks for sure.
Gorgeous card Debby, this background stamp caught my eye also when it came out. Love it.
Thank you so much for showing your awesome inspiration.
So pretty!!! Thank you so much for sharing this technique!
Wow!!! Beautiful colors, Beautiful card!!!!
Beautiful card with beautiful ink blending. Thanks for inspiring us!
TFS…I really like the Round and Round background.
Awesome card
I think now I like that Round and Round Stamp even more. Thanks!
This card is lovely. I like the colors but more than that, I love all the splatters. They just complete the card so well.
Beautiful card. I like the background circles stamp and have added it to my wishlist.