2018 #16 Reinkers: Experiments with Rats, reinkers and EDY {by Raquel Burillo}

2018 Topic 16: Reinkers

Rats! Yes that is right!! Re-inkers and rats...2 words I never thought I'd be writing in a sentence!  Read on!! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone! Raquel here from scrapcosy. Today I’m bringing you 2 different projects (and therefore, 2 videos) that I’ve created for the Reinkers challenge.

You would think reinkers just exist to add ink on your wasted ink pads, however, as you may have seen from the intro post and as you will see here and the rest of the weeks, you can do many other things with them. At my end I will show you about 5 different uses and I will use my favourite stamp set by Darcy EDY21 and one of her new stencils from the latest release PS115.

Watercolour - Welcome Home

For this technique I decided to use the distress oxide reinkers as watercolours. I selected for my palette: fossilized amber, faded jeans, aged mahogany, vintage photo, bundled sage, peeled paint and a touch of picked raspberry). I stamped my images on a 5 by 7 piece of heavy smoothy paper using versaFine Clair fallen leaves, which seem to repel water very well and don’t get as much covered as regular archival or regular versafine. This is my go to ink when it comes to this technique. I used my PaperArtsy white craft mat as a palette and I put a tiny drop of each one of the inks on it, then with a waterbrush (or a brush dipped into water) I added water to the drop, and I started colouring my stamped composition. I used the stamp set EDY21 by Darcy.  

I did some masking to create a little neighbourhood out of just one house (I love that house!!) and I used just 5 colours of ink for the entire piece.

And since my composition was crooked, I decided to attach it to a dark background a bit twisted so the actual floor is flat.

I really spent a relaxing time with this project, I really enjoyed playing with the reinkers in this way! If you want to see it coming to life, here is the video:

Experiments with Rats

Then, I decided to experiment a little bit more. I recently bought a vintage photo regular distress reinker for my inkpad, since I was running out of that ink again… It’s my favourite ink to add a final vintage touch on projects. And I also had the Vintage Photo distress oxide reinker. So I decided to use both reinkers (regular and oxide) to create the same project in 2 tiny cards out of smoothy heavy cardstock and compare the results. Regular Distress ink is translucent and Distress Oxide ink is opaque so even if I used the same colour, I thought the results should be a bit different, and I was right. Here is a video with all the details of my experiments, but I'll also write down the main steps and techniques used.

The first technique was to create my background. I used 2 big drops of Chalk Fresco Paint on my craftsheet, I extended them with a palette knife and added one drop of Vintage Photo Oxide ink on one and regular ink on the other one, I mixed the paint loosely and dragged and touched each piece of card on the corresponding puddle of paint until I got full coverage. I got a pastel look and when dried it with the Heat Tool it surprisingly became pinkish. I didn’t finish there, I added some water on the leftovers of the sheet, picked it again with my card, sprayed on the card some drops and heat set, until I created that typical distressed background full of drops, splashes and all but in a softer version. They got similar colour but the oxide one (left) was lighter in colour.

The second technique was to add ink through the stencil. I just put a tiny amount of ink in my craftsheet and lifted/smudge it using a piece of cut-n-dry foam and I added the buildings using Darcy’s new stencil PS115 to my background. I had to headset the ink, since I’m applying a non permanent ink on a non porous surface, so it takes a while to dry. The regular distress is translucent, so I can still see some of that texture (drops etc.) I created (first picture). Distress Oxide (second picture) is opaque so all that texture becomes covered.

Then I added the floor on my background. For that I used the cobweb part of the stencil (covered with tape to create a flat line) and I used Grunge Paste through the stencil. For my third technique I mixed a drop (2 for the oxide ink, since they are smaller due to the type of applicator tip) with Grunge Paste and stencilled each rat. At first they looked similar in colour but when dry the regular distress rat (first picture) was much darker than the oxide one (second picture). With the leftovers of each sponge I aded some ink on the borders of the card and on top of all the GP areas (floors and rats) to add more texture.

At this point, the 2 cards were very similar but one was significantly lighter (oxides) than the other one (regular) so I decided to bring a quote about light and darkness as a final touch to my little experiments and Alison Bomber’s stamps EAB02 were just the perfect match

I used the stamp with the quote “If there is light, then there is darkness. Pitagoras” for my final technique. So I got a piece of cut-n-dry felt and I created a mini inkpad of distress oxide vintage photo (regular) to stamp my quote twice on a piece of card. Why I did it twice? Because I wanted half a sentence on one card and half a sentence on the other card AND I wanted my margin to be as wider as I could. If I had just stamped the quote once and had cut it by the middle, the margin I would have got would have been too narrow for my taste. So I cut each sentence from a different stamped quote. And this time I went for the same ink for both cards (regular distress) so there would be something coordinating between them. I finally assembled these on a light brown card (for the oxide sample) and a dark brown card (for the regular one) and I used crunchy waxed kraft paper torn by hand, one flat (oxide) and one crumbled (regular) to create an intermediate layer between the piece and the card base. I decorated each piece with a metallic star.

Thanks very much for reading! I hope you liked the techniques and I encourage you to get your reinkers out and come up with other new techniques. As you see, one colour it’s enough to experiment. And just consider that the ink is a very concentrated liquid paint, so almost anything you do with paint can also probably be done with a reinker.

If you want to stay in touch or see more about me, here are my social media links

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/scrapcosy
Blog: scrapcosy.com 
Instagram: https://instagram.com/scrapcosy/
Facebook scrapcosy page: https://www.facebook.com/scrapcosy/
Facebook personal page: https://www.facebook.com/raquel.burilloperez
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Scrapcosy

To join our challenge and win a PaperArtsy Gift voucher:

Simply make something arty relevant to the topic, and link your creation from any social URL (eg. Instagram, Pinterest, Blog Post etc) sharing your original make to this challenge page.

The current topic link Topic 16: Reinkers will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, September 30th 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a PaperArtsy voucher for £50 to spend on our retail website. Please make sure we can contact you as a prize winner - it helps if you share your contact info from the platform you opt to use.

Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!