Saturday Show Case Alcohol Lift Ink and Bold Sayings

Hi I'm Janna and welcome to the Saturday Showcase! Today I wanted to showcase a favorite  technique and some of the new Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz stamps. The technique we will cover today is alcohol lift ink and the stamp sets I will be using are CMS433 Bold Sayings and CMS430 Floral Outlines.  I also wanted to slip in an educational comparison as well. The comparison will be on isopropyl alcohol percentages. Below are the cards I will show you how to make today. Lets get started!

As we know isopropyl is a must have for creating with alcohol inks. The only thing is there are many percentages available. The question which one to use. Today we will be looking at three different percentages and comparing then. (99%, 91%, and 70%)

To follow a detailed comparison check out the video below. Click here

Here is my swatch card showing the results from the different percentages of isopropyl rubbing alcohol. On the 70% I noticed very little blend and the ink appears to be mostly monochromatic. Conclusion: not enough alcohol to get good flow. 91% is good and it gives a ghostly flowing look when the alcohol is move around. I also noted that it has great color gradation. 99% is my favourite  of the three because I feel it gives the most flow when I am moving the alcohol ink around. It also gives me great ripples which is an effect I really like. For the most part I highly recommend that you try this out yourself. Everyone is going to have different preferences and desire different effects. So enjoy and have fun exploring!

Now onto the cardmaking portion of this blog post. Today we are going to be playing with alcohol lift ink and making two cards.

For the cards we will need the following: stamp sets CMS433 Bold Sayings and CMS430 Floral Outlines, specialty stamping paper, alcohol inks glacier, cobalt boysen berry, and wild plum, TH alcohol ink blower tool, lift ink, yupo paper, isopropyl rubbing alcohol, Ranger silver embossing powder, distress embossing ink, Sizzix die leafy twigs, acrylic stamping block or stamping platform, and paper towels. As always video instructions are available too. Click for here video instruction.

To start I will be working on a piece of yupo to make my first background.

First I dripped isopropyl onto the yupo paper and then drizzled on alcohol inks.

Once I had all of my inks down I the moved the alcohol ink around with the TH ink blower tool. I like the ink blower for backgrounds because I can easily control were the air goes.

Here is the finished background. I love how the wild plum still shines through the deeper colors.

Then I trimmed down the yopo paper to 4.25in x 5.5in with my tonic TH paper trimmer.

Now it is time to lift. For this technique I prefure to use a stamping platform. I find it easier to line up the stamps. With stamps in place I tapped on the lift ink all over the stamps.

With good firm pressure stamp on the yupo paper. While stamping I hold the pressure for an extra 20 seconds to make sure the lift ink has time to transfer and work its magic.

Lifting up the lid of the stamping platform you can see where the ink has lifted onto the stamp. I always like to check to make sure the ink has successfully transferred.

Here is the yupo paper with lifted ink. Right now the image is kind of ghost like and blurry, but that will soon change.

Setting aside the yupo for the moment I switched out the paper for some specialty stamping paper to stamp the lifted ink. The ink transfer worked beautifully. Looking at the stamped image you can see all the gradients and colors of the alcohol ink.

Now lets bring our stamped image on the yupo paper into focus. Fist I covered the entire sheet with a piece of paper towel and pressed. This lifted the first layer of lifted ink.

Next I will go in with a small piece of paper towel and start dabbing off small areas of the stamped image. The more dabbing, the clearer the image will become. After dabbing I will get a clean scrap of paper towel and then gently rub off the last of the residue. I do not rub first because it could smudge the image with left over lift ink.

Now check out the end result! The image is nice and clear and easy to see. I love lift ink. It is like magic watching the image come into focus.

For our sentiment we are going to be using the new stamp set CMS433 Bold Sayings.

We are going to be stamping on some plain black cardstock and a piece of vellum measuring at about 2.75in x 3.75in. I will be stamping with some distress embossing ink. Just before stamping I like to check the stamp to make sure I have good ink coverage. By turning the stamp sideways it is possible to see a shine where the embossing ink has stuck to the stamp.

Next I sprinkled some silver Ranger embossing powder onto the cardstock. When I have embossing powder where I don't want any I take a small paint brush and brush off the excess powder.

I stamped a sentiment for each card, one on black card stock and one on vellum. Then I embossed the powder with an embossing gun.

Here I decided to add an extra layer to the card with the alcohol ink stamping. I die cut some shiny TH metallic purple cardstock with the die leafy twigs.

Here is the finished die cut below. I love all the fantastic details of this die. Before die cutting I added some double sided adhesive sticky tape to the back of the metallic cardstock. This makes placing the die on the card much easier and avoids glue ooze.

For this card I decided to only use part of the die cut and cut it apart with some Tonic TH scissors.

Then I stuck the die cut onto the card and glued the embossed sentiment over the top.

For the velum paper sentiment I used a different tape. I used a vellum tape that would be almost invisible through the vellum.

As you can see the vellum tape is almost completely invisible.

And here are the two completed cards using the alcohol lift ink stamping technique. 

Thank you so much for joining me here today at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge Blog. Until next time happy crafting!

~Janna

Below are some links for some inspired shopping at The Funkie Junkie Boutique;

Tim Holtz Stamp Set CMS433 Bold Sayings

Tim Holtz Stamp Set CMS430 Floral Outlines

Yupo Paper Paper

Alcohol Ink Glacier

Alcohol Ink Cobalt

Alcohol Ink Boysenberry

Alcohol Ink Wild Plum

Ranger Lift Ink

Ranger Silver Embossing Powder

Distress Embossing Ink

Sizzix Die Leafy Twigs

Tim Holtz Acrylic Stamping Blocks