Getting Inky

Thanks to this fabulous video on Wendy Vecchi's Instagram feed, I was inspired to use my Ranger Archival Reinkers in Wendy's newest shades (Periwinkle, Goldenrod and English Ivy) to make some beautifully serendipitous backgrounds. 

Since Archival Inks are permanent, you need to dilute the very intense colors of the reinkers with rubbing alcohol, rather than water. Wendy recommends the 90% variety, but it turned out that what I had was 70%, and it worked pretty well. When I was done dipping and mixing and swirling the colors around on my craft mat (each background needed a few layers to get really interesting) I added some of the older colors (Garden Patina, Cactus Flower and Sunflower) by smooshing my ink pads; then I got to the stamping, stenciling and even a little bit of doodling!

The motifs I used on my three panels were: the repeating circle stencil and solid flourish stamp from Wendy's Thank You Stamp, Die and Stencil Set; the heart, triple dot and Merci stamps, as well as the flower dot and heart stencils, plus the label-shaped die from Merci and More; and the two star stamps from the Birthday Bash set. I outlined some of the designs with a fine black pen and added extra details with a white paint marker.

There's only one problem: Now that I've started making backgrounds with reinkers, I really don't want to stop! If you need me, I'll be at my worktable... ♥