Fran*tage Friday: Polished Stone

I'm so excited to join the PaperCraft Planet designers in hostessing another Fran*tage Friday where we have teamed up with Stampendous to bring you stamping inspiration and instruction!  Each week, a new designer is  showing new stamping techniques with a chance to win the gorgeous Stampendous stamps we each work with for our projects!

I decided to play with one of my favorite stamping techniques for my cards today: Polished Stone with alcohol inks.  I had so much fun playing with this technique, that I have 3 cards to share with you today.  This first one is my favorite of the bunch.  Keep with me through my marathon post as I'm going to show you step by step photos on how I created the background for the hearts.



Here are the supplies needed to complete this technique:

• Stamps: Cling Dream Text;  Cling Deco Lady;   Cling Breathe
• Black Stazon Ink
• Ranger Alcohol inks: Shell Pink, Willow, Cloudy Blue, and Pearl
• Ranger Alcohol ink Blending Solution
• Glossy Paper
• Inkssentials Blending Tool and Felt Applicators
• Ranger Craft Mat

You can substitute your own products for this technique, but you MUST use glossy paper and a permanent ink such as Stazon to achieve the same look.  You can use any dye based reinker you have on hand along with regular Rubbing Alcohol and a cotton ball, so have fun playing!

Let's get started!

Put one drop of each reinker on the felt as shown above.  

Begin pouncing up and down on the glossy card stock, covering the entire paper.

Optional Step: After the color has been added to the paper, if you'd like more of an artistic 'blur' take some blending solution and drip it directly on the card stock in a few spots as shown below.  

Then, take the blending tool and pounce over the solution to blend it as as desired.

After I had finished, I wanted to have more green to it, so I added some more Willow ink to the blending felt and pounced until I had achieved the shades I wanted for my project.  That's the beauty of this technique - you can continue to play with your colors until you've gotten the 'perfect' look!

When the inks have completely dried (which won't take long), ink up the stamp with black Stazon ink and carefully stamp on the paper.  Remember, that glossy card stock can make your stamp slide a bit, so be very careful when stamping.

After I had completed the large text background, I created the pink and blue backgrounds, using two shades of the primary color following the same basic steps shown above.  After I had completed them all, I die cut each of them with a variety of Spellbinder dies for my cards.

Here's the other two cards I created the rest of the Polished Stone embellishments shown above.

and, the last card using the beautiful "Breathe" sentiment stamp set...



Want to win the three stamps I used on my projects today? Comment HERE (click the link -- comments on the linked blog post count. Comments here are just nice) and let us know what technique you’d like to learn. You have until Thursday at midnight, Eastern Time. After that, we’ll pick a winner through Random.org and announce that lucky duck on the next Fran*tage Friday.

Good luck!
Jessica

Thanks to our good friends at Stampendous for sponsoring this event!

Card 1 Details ( 5.5" Square card)
Stamps: Dream Text, Deco Lady (Stampendous)
Ink: Stazon black
Card stock: Glossy; Basic Grey Two Scoops
Other: Wild Orchid roses, lace, and satin ribbon; Ranger Inkssentials blending tool and felt; Ranger alcohol inks and blending solution; Spellbinder plain & scallop heart dies and plain and scallop rectangle dies

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Card 2 Details (5.5" Square card)
Stamps: Dream Text (Stampendous)
Ink: Stazon black
Card stock: Glossy; Basic Grey Two Scoops
Other: Wild Orchid rose; Spellbinder plain and scallop heart dies; Silk ribbon; Sateen green flowers; sewing machine; Cuttlebug seeing spots embossing folder; Ranger Inkssentials blending tool & felt; Ranger Alcohol inks and blending solution

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Card 3 Details (3" x 6 1/4" Spellbinder long rectangle shaped card)
Stamps: Breathe and Dream Text (Stampendous)
Ink: Black Stazon
Card stock: Glossy; Basic Grey Two Scoops
Other: Sewing machine; Spellbinder plain & scallop heart dies and Long rectangle plain and scallop dies; Honeydew Twine from The Twinery; Buttons; Ranger alcohol inks and blending solution; Ranger inkssentials blending tool and felt applicators