Happy Balloons with Distress Oxide Watercolour

Distress oxides are my favourite ink to use. I’ve had my distress oxides for a while but I haven’t used them for watercolour before, so I thought I would try them out on my card today.

I chose two colours of distress oxide inks – peacock feathers and cracked pistachio, and pressed the ink pads directly onto an acrylic block. I spritzed the ink with water, then pressed a piece of white card down on the acrylic block. I moved the card around to make swirls of colour on the card, then dried it with my heat tool.

I repeated this process a few times, layering more colour onto the card. I wanted to add a little of a darker blue colour so I chose blueprint sketch, which is a lovely vibrant blue, repeating the same steps to add this colour to the background.

I cut another piece of white card with a rounded rectangle die, from the MFT Blueprints 31 set. I trimmed down my watercolour panel so I had three strips of card, then added them onto the white rectangle at a diagonal.

Next, I stamped a balloon from the Concord & 9th Happy Balloons stamp set with the blueprint sketch distress oxide ink. These inks stamp very well!

As these inks have pigment properties, its best to dry it with a heat tool first before heat embossing. I stamped one of the patterns from the set onto the balloon and used silver embossing powder to compliment the blues and greens on the card. I then die cut it with the coordinating die.

On the panel, I stamped a greeting from the stamp set with black ink, then masked it before stamping the balloon string too. I added the balloon with foam tape, then used liquid glue to attach the whole panel to a white card base. I finished the card with some enamel dots.

I’m entering this card into the sketch challenge at Where Creativity Meets C9.