Tips, Tools and Techniques Tuesday!

Merry Christmas everyone!  It's hard to believe that the holidays are here already AND in a little over a week this whole year will be over.  This has been a wonderful year for me professionally and I am very grateful.

This week I am going to show you a fun and easy staining technique with Tim Holtz's Adirondack Color Wash.  It is a great method for making background papers.  

There are a lot of fun uses for the Color Wash inks.  Today I am just going to show you one of those.  You will need a few things to do this process yourself.  Those supplies are:

1. Tim Holtz's Adirondack Color Wash
2. Water color paper
3. Freezer paper or another non porous work surface
4. Paper Towels
5. Windex

Tim Holtz's Adriondack Color Wash

Since this technique involves introducing a lot of moisture to paper you are going to want to choose a paper that can stand up to that.  I like to use watercolor paper.  I used these small post card size that I will later stamp on and layer onto the front of a card.

Before I get started, I cover my work surface with freezer paper, which you can find right in the grocery store.  You'll want to make sure that you have the shiny side up as that will be your palette.  It is the perfect palette because when you are done with your first set of color, you can just wipe it right up and start all over.

After you've covered your surface, choose between 2 and 3 colors to create your design.  Spray them right onto the freezer paper.

I tried this technique with water and it will work.  However, I discovered that the colors really pop if you spray some Windex onto it.  Then it looks like this...

Then you take your paper and press it down into the mixture.  Tap the paper to make sure that the whole surface gets covered.  Don't worry...the curling that occurs is normal.   It will straighten out some as it dries and then pressing it under some heavy books will take it the rest of the way.

Pull it up and lay it into a clean area of your palette.  It is going to drip, so be careful.

Take some paper towel and blot!  Don't rub, just blot it to get the excess water off.

You can get some really pretty marbling using this technique.  And, come on, messy is fun!

I am going to try to post one more time before the weekend...but if not.  Have a happy and healthy holiday!!

Artfully yours,
Theresa