Inky Technique

Despite having  a large number of TV channels available nowadays there are often evenings when I can find nothing which I'd like to watch so I often resort to the laptop and either Pinterest or YouTube.  This card is more or less CASE'd from a YouTube video in which a square acrylic block was used to produce an inky background - these backgrounds are quite unpredictable and certainly cannot be replicated exactly another time but great fun nonetheless!  As I don't have a square block I die cut a mask from paper and printed through the 'hole'.  First of all a couple of colours of ink pad are selected and applied to the block as you think best, spritz lightly with water and then print onto your chosen piece of white card.  My piece of card was slightly smaller than a 6" card blank but with hindsight could have been a bit smaller so that I could have added a toning coloured layer behind.  Once this ink was dry I used the Misti to stamp a sentiment, the tree and a flight of birds before using a square die slightly smaller than the inked square to cut out the centre.  The white layer was adhered direct to the base card and the cut out square inserted into the square 'hole' using foam pads to raise it up.  The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the small area behind the birds where some of the ink leaked outside the makeshift paper stencil but I decided that just added to the interest and unpredictability of this great technique (that's my story anyway!!).  I can think of quite a few stamps which would work well using this technique.

Stamp - Sheltering Tree from Stampin' Up
Sentiment - from the same stamp set
Birds - from High Tide stamp set Stampin' Up