Distress Ink Lifting - Inspired by Jennifer McGuire

I confess

I'm a terrible stamper

and

I have very limited experience using heat embossing, distress inks and colouring.

Kathy Racoosin's 4th 30 Day Coloring Challenge

has inspired me to practice my stamping so that I could colour along with her challenge this month.  I've been inking up my stamps with my new-to-me Versafine Onyx Black ink using my Fiskars Stamp Press and stamping on watercolour paper, ready for some colouring with Distress Inks and watercolour paints.

Well, today that all changed - they can be coloured another day!!!

Have you seen this "Distress Ink Lifting" post and video by Jennifer McGuire?

I was so excited after watching her in action and seeing the results.

So, today I took another brave pill and tried my hand at a little heat embossing and just had to share my first attempt at Distress Ink Lifting.

I took the Stampendous Magnolia Rose cling stamp and stamped it using Versamark Ink on 285gsm smooth white cardstock then applied embossing powders (two images in clear with glitter, two in white).  After noticing some extra sparkle on my 1st image, I realised that I had forgotten to "powder" the cardstock beforehand, so that was fixed for the other three images.

Following Jennifer's technique I took my Faded Jeans Mini Distress Ink and saturated the entire panel with luscious blue ink.  (I only have a few inks in my stash, so I will definitely be adding some more vibrant colours like the Blueprint Sketch that Jennifer used.)
important update
DON'T ink your background until you are ready to "lift" the ink
from the within the stamped image!!!  This technique will
not work if you let the ink dry.

 Next came the water ... and I forgot to take a photo.  I touched my water brush into each of the petals, leaves and bows, where I wanted to "lift" the colour in preparation for colouring.
This photo shows the "bleached" areas of the image and the start of my colouring where I used the water brush to add Worn Lipstick Mini Distress Ink into the petals.

 Mini Distress Inks used:

Faded Jeans - background

Worn Lipstick - flower petals

Peeled Paint - leaves

Spiced Marmalade- middle of the flowers

Barn Door - berries

Dusty Concord - bow

And here is the finished panel, 

with a touch of Clear Wink Of Stella sparkle over the "coloured" elements of the stamped image.  

I wish you could see it in real life, I am so excited with the the result, learnt a lot for my 1st effort and look forward to working on the other three panels I have ready and waiting over the weekend.

AND I will make sure that I colour the stems green next time, not sure why I got them confused with the ribbon ... I will try "bleaching" them with some water and adding some green tomorrow, not sure how the Wink Of Stella will affect things, so it will be another good learning experience!

Thank You for taking the time to read to the end of this very long post.
I really enjoyed this technique and hope you like it too.

I have linked my work to Kathy's 30 Day Coloring Challenge.

#thedailymarker30day
The details of Kathy's challenge are linked above and HERE is the link to the post where you can link your colouring projects and admire the creations shared by others joining the challenge.  You are sure to be inspired.

HAPPY COLOURING :)