As we are running a course at the Institute of Genealogists on Scrapbooking your Ancestors, we thought it would make a change to show a few Layouts and how you can use the Inkadinks to distress and antique a few pages. The Vintage set of colours are really effective and so quick and easy to use. So armed with a piece of Cut n Dry foam, a spritzer bottle and palette, use of few drops of Ochre dripped into a palette and dab the ink onto the foam. You only need a tiny amount. Drag the ink along the edges of tags and gently sponge onto background material. It works really well on photos, we always use scanned copies so that if a technique doesn't work it doesn't matter too much and you haven't ruined your precious original print. Using the ink in a spritzer bottle and adding a few drops of water (until you get the colour you want), and spritzing the ink onto tags for journalling and adding a 'foxing', effect to age the photos is really effective. Remember always put the photos in a cardboard box to spritz, so you don't spray onto your clothes, soft furnishings, floor etc! The Inkadinks are fantastic for distressing techniques and using Cut N Dry means you can sponge and apply them onto any surface.
Doing a Layout of an Antartic Explorer seems appropriate at the moment with the weather!! All we are missing in our garden is a few Penguins and a Polar Bear or two posing by the pond!!
I don't know about you but I really enjoy Scrapbooking. I know it isn't as popular as Card Making and lots of people tell us, they haven't got time and they aren't into it but I love being surrounded by pictures of my ancestors. I think it is probably something that comes later in life, like Gardening! It really fulfills the creative urges to make a work of art. The satisfaction of collecting and choosing all the bits to go together is very satisfying and for card makers it allows us to put to use all the techniques we have learnt like Rubber Stamping, embossing, printing, creating 'arty', backgrounds and distressing, to name but a few. Everyone has an old shoe box full of old photographs, it seems such a shame not to do something with them and use all the stash we have collected over the years. You will see I have used by Cuttlebug embossing folders in the next blog to add texture and to antique some frames, they look great, I just hope they come out in the photo.
If you want to see the Inkadinks being used to their fullest don't forget to go onto www.allpinkgirlblogspot where my friend Dawn does some amazing cards using the inks. Take a bit of time to look back at her blog and look at some of her backgrounds. When you look into the cards they show some great techniques.
Happy Crafting!
