Shades of Summer!

There are three absolutely luscious new WendyVecchi Signature Series Archival Inks making their debut today from Ranger, and I was lucky enough to be given a chance to test them out a teeny bit early. Please welcome Rosey Posey (the vivid pink of my dreams), Peachy Keen (the perfect peachy orange), and Morning Glory (which really is exactly the same color as one of my alltime favorite flowers)!

The first thing I do with any new ink is make a swatch for the collection it belongs in. Ranger Ink (the hint is in the name, lol) is extremely good about making the package color accurate, so what you see really is what you get! But... until you've stamped, stenciled, spritzed, or dabbed a new color yourself, it doesn't really count, does it? The next thing I like to do is see what sort of tones I can get on various paper types. I smooshed each of the colors onto my Craft Mat separately, and spritzed them with a bit of rubbing alcohol, then layered them onto both Wendy Vecchi Perfect White Cardstock and also some Glossy Alcohol Ink Cardstock. It's fun to layer the same color of ink, undiluted, on top... after the smooshy panels dry, of course. As you can see in the photo below, the matte surface (on the left) absorbed the colors a bit more, so you get a softer effect. Whereas, on the glossy surface (on the right) the colors are bolder, but there's less contrast between the wet and dry applications. After I had made my own experimental prints using all three inks, I sliced them into strips and made quilt-inspired panels, similar to this card from a while back.     

Once I had funky quilt-inspired panels I could've done pretty much ANYTHING with them, but I decided to pair the largest sentiment from Wendy's MAKE ART Merci and More Stamp, Die and Stencil Set with the outline butterfly from her Country Flowers set, again using the Morning Glory, Rosey Posey and Peachy Keen inks. And just like that, a pair of thank you cards are added to my stash!

Be sure to visit the Ranger Website and Blog all week to see the newest items from Tim Holtz, Dyan Reaveley and more; plus the @ranger_ink and @wendyvecchi Instagram accounts are always full of inspiration!