And, finally continuing with the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP) and this is class No. 4.

Today, as the title says, is all about ink blending. Before I move to ink blending, I would like to mention that that there are a lot of different inks on the market today with different properties and purposes. There are two, most basic kind of inks 1. Dye and 2. Pigment inks; Dye inks dye the paper and get deep into the fibers of paper. They dry almost instantly which makes them great for stamp layering. Pigment inks, on the other hand, stay wet for a while and are great for heat embossing. They can be little less expensive than dye inks and they are definitely not going to be a good choice if you choose stamp layering. This is a super short explanation and description of inks, but the information and understating about inks is definitely there. Now, I can move to all the inks that are neither pigment nor dye inks and they are all call Hybrid Inks. Hybrid inks are great because they have properties of both dye and pigment inks. I am not 100 % sure if you are able to heat emboss with them, but one thing is certain, they are perfect for ink blending techniques because they stay wet a little bit longer, therefore it is easier to move the pigment around on the paper. Such inks are Distress Inks and Distress Oxide inks by Tim Holtz or Reactive Inks from Hero Arts. So, that being said, let’s move to today’s project.

Today’s inspiration (see image above) is a card created by Amy Lee. In her card she used “Sketchy Cities America 2” stamp set and for a beautiful and vibrant background she used Picked Raspberry and Wild Honey Distress Oxide Inks by Tim Holtz. And here is the process of what I came up with.

First step, as always, I gathered my supplies. I picked not too heavy gold card stock from the Cardstock Warehouse and for the base I used Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110 lbs, Distress Oxide Inks by Tim Holtz, and the star of the show, layering die set from Altenew called “Layered Cityscapes“. I have to admit that the layer “B” die is pretty intricate, as you can see in the picture above, and sometimes is hard to use a manual die cutting machine to cut such intricate piece, so I turned to my trusted Gemini die cutting machine by Crafter’s Companion. This is a wonderful electric machine perfect for intricate dies. TIP 1: This is for all your dies and die cutting machines: when placing dies through a die cutting machine make sure to put your dies vertically and not horizontally. This will definitely help you get much better results and you won’t need to go back and forth trying to cut your paper. Trust me, this will save a lot of time! You can see how I arranged my dies on the cutting mat. The intricate die is placed vertically and if you look closely, my cuts came out perfect just from putting my “sandwich” through the die cutting machine once. I then cleaned all the little pieces with that super cool tool from Sizzix. This tool is great for taking all the little pieces of paper out in no time. TIP 2: I always like to keep a little bin on my desk when I am die cutting. It helps me keep my work surface and my craft room clean. TIP 3: When taking your intricate dies out, please make sure to use some sort of pick tool, there is a lot of them on the market and they are quite affordable. And when you are taking your die cuts out, please be gentle and try poking your die cuts from the other side through the little holes on the back of your dies. This will separate your cuts from the dies and prevent them from tearing. Trust me, it happened more than I can count and this will, definitely not just save you time but also your precious paper.

Next, it was time fo some ink blending. I started off by masking my card base off, just in case. Now, if you are not doing this directly onto a card base, there is truly no need to mask anything. I simply did this as a precaution; I really didn’t want my ink to accidentally bleed on the inside edges of my card base. I started with Wild Honey and moved to Picked Raspberry. When blending your inks the trick is to overlap them and to go back and forth between the colors. This will definitely give you that seamless look. Since I am using Distress Oxide inks I decided to use some clean water and a clean towel fo this. I simply sprayed a light mist of water on my project and dried it with the towel. This lifted the ink from the paper (Distress Oxides react with water) and left little spots on the paper for some more interest and depth.

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Next it was time to assemble everything. For putting everything together I used “Art Glitter Glue”, truly one of the best glues for paper crafters out there. I just used very little glue here because I didn’t want this glue to seep out and react with my ink. And that’s it; the card is done in no time!

Super simple and easy!

I hope you like this technique and tips from today’s blog. If you have any questions please shoot me a message and I will be more than happy to answer all your questions you might have.

Thank you so much for visiting me today and do not forget to find me and connect to other social media. Cheers!