Love You Hearts and Alcohol Inks

Hi Crafty Friends,

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and there are so many wonderful stamps and dies to help make the day even more festive. Today’s card design is using a new stencil by Altenew called Flowing Hearts. I combined the intertwining arabesque design with alcohol inks and got a colorful, dimensional and artsy look.

I love working with alcohol inks and the messy (but fun), artsy look it creates. One thing that is a must though when working with alcohol inks is to use paper specially formulated for alcohol inks. So, Ranger alcohol ink paper or Yupo paper are good ones to start with, any other kind of paper will not allow the inks to spread and mingle!

So with this in mind, I started with a piece of alcohol ink paper and the Altenew Flowing Hearts stencil. Since there are two hearts on this stencil and I am only using the small one, I masked off the larger one with Frog tape. I also added Frog tape to the top of the stencil to give me more room to spread the paste without it going onto my paper.

Then, with the stencil placed over the paper, I spread Ranger Opaque, Matte texture paste over the small heart using a palette knife, let the paste dry a little (it doesn’t take long) and then added the second heart below it. What you are left with are two beautifully dimensional hearts.

Now comes the fun and messy part. By the way, if you don’t like inky fingers, I would recommend wearing latex gloves for this part.

But to continue on, with the hearts completely dry, I started adding alcohol inks, one color at a time, letting it spread and mingle. The colors I used were Flamingo (Beach Deco), Shell Pink (Countryside), Plum (Nature Walk), Currant (Cottage Path) and Butterscotch Yellow (Nature Walk). Periodically, I would sprinkle small splatters of alcohol blending solution on the paper with a small paintbrush (I use the Ranger alcohol brushes for all alcohol work so my other brushes aren’t affected) to help the inks move more and create interest. Finally, as an added touch,  I squeezed a drop of a few colors onto my glass mat, added a tiny bit of alcohol blending solution to make the ink a little looser and then splattered ink droplets with the paintbrush onto the paper. With the panel complete, I went old-school and deckled the edge with deckle scissors since I didn’t want to squish the hearts running it through the die-cutting machine to create a border.

I now needed a sentiment so I cut three (3) “Love” words using the Penny Black Love die and Mulberry cardstock, stacked and glued them on top of each other. Then, stamped the word “YOU” from the My Favorite Things You sentiment set with Versamark ink onto a strip of white card stock and heat embossed it with Ranger rose gold embossing powder.

To complete the card, I added a foam panel to the back of the heart paper, then adhered it to a pink “Candy Hearts” card base, added the “Love” and “YOU” strip with a little glue. For a final touch, I added a few enamel drops.

And there we have it! I hope you enjoyed our little crafty adventure today. We will see you next time♥

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Goodies Used: