Lost Art Cards and Designs

Today I made this beautiful fall tag.  I wanted to experiment with applying ink in several colors to produce the effect you see underneath the printed acetate overlay.  I tried this instead of using a brayer and was able to achieve the lightly inked effect in 5 steps. I wanted to share this technique with you, I don't recall ever seeing it used before, so I may have invented it, but I have no way of knowing for sure.  I just really like it!   Keep reading to learn how.

Step 1

First , choose 3-4 Distress Ink colors in the 1" cube size.  ( I have tried this successfully with up to 4 colors) 

 Then , lightly swipe the tag with the 1" Distress Ink color of your choice.

Step 2

Next, lightly swipe in some different places with your next color.

Step 3

Next, swipe the remaining color in a different direction.  Lightly swiping the Distress Ink Pad across the manila tag gives an open, airy kind of feel to the tag.

Step 4

 Lightly swipe with the remaining color.  

Step 5

I chose the Falling Leaves stamps by Stampers Anonymous to make this tag.  I applied Distress Ink pads to my craft mat, spritzed the colors with water to blend and then placed the leaf stamp into the watery ink and stamped the tag.  Since this was not watercolor paper, the ink laid on the top of the tag, so I used my heat tool to dry it.  Then I added another layer of color to the leaf by stamping slightly beside the first image.  

Wanting something a little special, I decided to cut out an overlay from gold printed acetate.  Then, my creative mind went wild! I began looking for every leaf die that I had in my possession and cut several different leaves, but decided on Alterations Autumn Gatherings  and am so glad I did. 

Tinted, Heat -Curled, Mica Spray, and Misted Die Cut Fall Leaves

They turned out to be the perfect embellishment for this tag.

This picture shows some of the tiny leaves before tinting them with the remaining Distress Ink left on my mat.  I used my Storks to hold on to the tiny pieces while I used the heat tool to make them curl slightly.

After allowing the ink to dry the first time, I sprayed each leaf with Mica Spray, let it dry after a quick shot of the heat tool, and then swiped it into a little bit of Pine Needles Distress Ink that had been sprayed with water.

I am not sure you can see the beautiful tiny leaves surrounding the wooden filigree heart, but they really do look pretty on the tag.  I glued them in place with Multi Matte Medium.  The gold vellum Stampendous sentiment was embossed with Liquid Platinum Embossing Powder by Ranger , then stained using Tea Dye Stain and then adding some touches of Antique Linen Distress Paint to both sides of the sentiment piece as well as to the edges for a antiqued effect.