Ink pads are great for small endeavors; a quick card here and there, or for an afternoon's detail work while parked at the coffee shop. But when planning a larger project, or a mass production of cards, I prefer the ink refill bottles dribbled on my pallet board. It allows for SUPER easy blending, and clean edge stamping. Mind you, this works best with pigment inks. They won't dry out on your pallet board for weeks. Seriously, I've left ink exposed on my boards for months. Of course if I don't hide it on a shelf or put it in a drawer, Pye gets into the action and I get her version of artwork all over creation. Its a good thing this stuff is non-toxic... She's lucky she's cute
The background piece of the finished card starts out as a plain sheet of 8.5x11 card stock. I like to use either white or ivory Stardust. I buy it by the ream from Office Max when they send out those paper bags in the Sunday paper. Anything you can stick in the bag is X% off. You can fit quite a few reams of paper in those bags.
Choose your color pallet from your ink bottles. The number you pick is only limited by the number of clean brayers you have. Here's a tip. When you buy an ink pad, buy the refill bottle with it. Just because a pad gets dry doesn't mean it's not still good. If you have the refill bottles your ink pads can last for years. I've had most of mine for 10+ years. The only reason I've thrown them out is if they get ratty and start shedding their foam or fabric on my projects.
Dribble your colors onto your pallet. You only need about 4-6 drops per color. I use small brayers so I space my dribbles just wider than the brayer. Run a brayer through each of the puddles a few times back and forth to coat it. Choose the lightest color first and start rolling it on the paper. Alternate directions and colors until you like what you see. You can add back in lighter accents if you lost it all during the process. No problem.
I save the darkest colors for adding the stamped details. In this case I used a 4-leaf clover. Tap it onto the pallet board to ink it and then tap it onto the paper, repeat as often as you want. Maybe add another color to the board that has some shimmer in it and stamp away. You can see the pallet board below after I'm done. The colors have blended to create ever different shades than what you started with. Yes, you should line your work surface with something disposable as you will be inking off the edge of you page.
The embossing powder in the picture was used on the leprechaun's hat in the finished product.
After it's dry, I cut up the page to create the accent pieces for the card's background. This is what it looks like, dry and cut. You can encourage it to dry with your heat gun. Or you can let it sit for a few hours. When pigment ink is applied to paper, it will dry, albeit slowly. The pallet board does not allow the ink to penetrate so it stays wet on the board.
The horse shoe (below) is the first cut I did from the Cricut Craft Room, a thing I've been blogging about in previous posts. I've been updating those posts as I learn more, so if you are a Cricut owner, you may want to re-read them.
The inside of the card was stamped using the ink from the pallet board and various themed stamps from my collection. I punched a four-leaf clover from green glitter paper left over from Christmas. That's a Martha Stewart punch. Click any image to embiggen for details.
Happy St. Pat's, people! - AMK
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