a little spook, and a little gold...

Hello my wonderful friends!

It's time for another Unity hop!
(and sale!)

I'm kinda sneaking in here… This isn't my usual week to hop with the team, but I couldn't help myself when I saw this new kit…

To be honest, I was supposed to be working on Christmas cards… cuz I've got 50+ to make, but I couldn't get in the mood. Halloween was just too distracting. :)

I also have been doing some playing with this month's LOL…

(Everything Matters)

I was having fun with a couple different techniques here…
I started by stamping the woodgrain from "Let Love Grow" in white acrylic paint. I then sponged on a few different brown Distress Inks. The paint will resist the color.. FABULOUS!  Another great thing Distress inks do, is react to water.. so I put down a stencil  and spritzed some water over it… And the watermark rings are born! (I love how simple and understated it is, yet in the overall design, it adds that little extra something.)

Now, to make a heart that shines… literally.

Step 1: Rub background with an anti-static powder. This will insure no powder sticks where it doesn't belong.

Step 2: Ink up the stamp with Distress Ink. (If you want to use a different brand of dye ink, you need to FIRST ink with VersaMark, then the ink over top. It won't hurt your ink pad, but it will allow the image to stay wet long enough to work with.

Step 3: Brush some Perfect Pearl (Ranger) over the image. Then use your brush to tap the powder onto the image (this makes sure the little particles are nice and stuck on the ink. 

Step 4: (sorry, no photo of this…) Use your brush to whisk off all the extra powder. Than set the Perfect Pearls with a tiny bit of water…to do this,  Mist the water into the air than wave your paper through the mist (like you would with perfume). It doesn't take much moisture to set the resins, and you don't want to get too much water, or your Distress Inks will start bleeding and moving.

Now you have this cool two toned image… from one angle you have dark ink..

 …but if you tilt it, it turns to gold! AWESOME!

I used Black Soot Distress ink, and Perfect Gold Perfect Pearls.. try mixing and matching different colors for awesome effects!

The flowers were stapes with archival ink, with a little Distress Marker coloring over top… I love how those gold letters look!

Don't forget---
 Leave a comment on EACH blog in the hop (including the Unity blog) for your chance to win.  The winners will be announced Saturday night on the Unity blog.

Enjoy!