Time again for My Favorite Things' Design Team Creative Challenge! With the introduction of MFT's new Hybrid Inks over the past couple of months, a whole new world of stamping techniques have opened up. This month, the design team is challenged to present to you ink techniques featuring the rainbow of colors MFT's Hybrid line offers.
Here are a few details about the inks:
- These pigment-based inks dry like dye inks and are permanent on paper surfaces. They are acid-free, archival, and fade resistant. Inks can be heat set on glass, fabric, wood, plastic, metal, and clay. As these inks are fast drying and waterproof, they cannot be embossed with embossing powder. As with any permanent ink, this product contains a small amount of solvent.
- These inks feature a 3 3/8" x 2 1/8" raised felt pad.
- Color-matched to MFT's fabulous array of Heavyweight Cardstock, and coordinates with our complete line of Replenishments ribbon, buttons, and felt.
- Hybrid Ink Refills are available, sold separately.
Here's my first project I made for you ... a tumbled tile coaster:
(All supplies used are linked below each project. Click on any photo for a larger view)
My coaster was made from a 4" x 4" tumbled unglazed Botticino tile you can get from any home improvement store in the floor tile section. I've been making these for years and prefer my coasters to remain unglazed so they will absorb moisture from a drinking glass. I'm thrilled to report MFT's Hybrid inks turned out to be absolutely FABULOUS for this use!
These are the Hybrid Ink colors I used to 2-step stamp Mona's pretty Blooming Roses:
Razzle Berry, then Wild Cherry for the pink roses; Blu Raspberry, then Nightshift Blue for the blue roses; Factory Green for the leaves.
You'll want to test the colors you plan to use on the back of the tile and will probaby need to go a shade or two darker than you'd think. Be sure to let the colors thoroughly dry, because they will lighten as they dry. You can speed up the drying process by using your heat embossing tool:
Above, you can see how much darker the Razzle Berry (left full rose) and Blu Raspberry (right outline rose) look when they are first stamped, compared to the final result in my first photo above.
Note: Drying the ink with your heat tool serves two purposes -- Not only does it dry the ink quicker, it will help to heat set it. I zapped each of the stamped inks until I couldn't see a shine from wet ink any longer -- probably a total of about 4 minutes all over the tile. (Be sure to place your tile on a heat resistent surface and don't touch it until it is cooled, because it will get very hot!). Alternately, if you don't have a heat tool or are making a lot of these coasters at one time I have also heat set tiles in the oven before, at about 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
I want to mention that the ink WILL dry on its own -- by the time I finished stamping the whole tile and then started drying the ink with my heat tool, about half of the ink (the images stamped first) were already dry. I just didn't water test any of the ink that had not been heat set. Since this type of tile is unglazed and porous, I may not have needed to heat set it in order for it to be permanent on the tile but it worked, so I'll keep on doing it this way!
After drying the ink, I tested the "permanence" by spritzing the images on the back side of my tile with water. The photo on the left below is freshly sprayed and the the photo on the right is after the water dried. Absolutely no running or spreading of the ink!
To finish my tile, I covered up the test inks on the back by gluing on MFT's cork sheet (to help protect furniture) and stamped it with this pretty sentiment from Chalkboard Greetings Too in Razzle Berry Hybrid ink:
{Rose Tile Coaster Supplies}
Other: 4x4 Botticino unglazed tumbled tile, heat embossing tool
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My next project utilizes MFT's wonderful new Translucent Vellum, in a butterfly window card:
To create the window in the card, I used the second from largest Rectangle Frame to cut the opening in my Primitive White card base:
Next, I used the largest Rectangle frame to cut a piece of Sno Cone cardstock, embossed it with the Mini Chicken Wire stencil, then adhered the frame to the card front.
Then I started experimenting with coloring the translucent vellum with Hybrid inks. First, I used a brayer to apply the Grape Jelly Hybrid ink (I started my testing with darker inks, thinking they would color the vellum better -- so you could tell it had been colored, but I think even the lighter colors will work beautifully, too!) -- thinking brayering would be the best way to get a smooth application. But as you can see, the brayering process on the slick surface of the vellum didn't yield as smooth of a result as I expected. In the top of the photo you can see an original piece of the translucent vellum as a reference (the spot where the brayer is laying is where I was applying the ink and the colored vellum is moved over to the left -- sorry for the light glare):
Next, I tried applying the ink DTP (direct-to-paper) with the Razzle Berry ink pad and was getting (an expected) "drag" pattern from the surface of the ink pad. So I decided to make the best of situation and created some swirling patterns. I liked the texture of these results -- this will make a great focal point for just the right kind of project:
Still searching for a smoother application, I tried Lemon Drop ink DTP -- again, thinking by using the darker of the yellow shades, you would be able to see the vellum was colored easier. Woweeee ... if you're looking for a very sunshiney bright happy yellow color, this is IT, LOL! It was a bit brighter than I wanted for my project, so I quickly grabbed a tissue and started wiping off some of the color. In the process, I noticed the ink had already started drying on the vellum and by buffing the color all over the surface of the vellum, not only was the color softening, but it ended up smooth as butter!
Having found my perfect application process, I tried the Razzle Berry again, with beautiful results:
Next, I tried the MFT's medium red shade, Wild Cherry:
And then Orange Fizz. For this test, I decided to buff the left side of the vellum, but left the right side unbuffed (just direct-to-paper), so you could see about how much the color is softened by buffing it with a tissue. As you can see, the right un-buffed side is a little darker (but still a little streaky):
NOTE: I also discovered that the buffed vellum pieces tended NOT to warp or curl after they fully dried (either not at all or very little), whereas the vellum with a heavier application of ink (DTP and brayering) curled a little. To combat this, I just set a couple of acrylic blocks on top of the vellum pieces overnight and when I checked them the next day, they were nice and flat again.
As a comparison, I also colored a piece of vellum the same way (DTP) with Dye ink (sorry, I only have a few neutral colors of MFT's dye ink to try, so this is Chocolate Brown, un-buffed. I figured buffing would be of no use, because the dye ink wouldn't be dry yet and I would just be wiping it off):
As expected, the Dye ink took longer to dry than the Hybrid ink (I don't have an exact timeframe, as I set it aside to dry while working on other parts of my project).
Then I decided to water test both inks on the vellum. Here are the results (again, as expected!):
The left photo above was taken immediately after spritzing with water. You can see the dye ink was immediately "re-activated" and started running off the vellum. The right photo above was snapped only about a minute later as the vellum and water was drying. As you can see, the dye ink colored vellum is curling more than the Grape Jelly Hybrid ink colored vellum on the right AND the Hybrid ink remains unaffected by the water!
To assemble my card, I used a piece of my Blu Raspberry colored vellum in the window (how it is attached is shown in a photo below) and stamped a piece of uncolored vellum with this Chalkboard Greetings Too sentiment and white heat embossed it. The Heirloom Label die cut sentiment was attached to the Blu Raspberry vellum widow with a few strategically placed mini glue dots. The photo above shows you how pretty the vellum looks more in real life, with light showing through it.
Next, I die cut Winged Beauties from the Lemon Drop and Tangy Orange colored vellum (I love the soft peach color the Tangy Oranged yielded!) and attached them to the card front with mini glue dots:
On the inside of the card you can see the back side of the Blu Raspberry colored vellum and how it was attached to the inside of the window card front, using Copic X-Press It Double-Sided High Tack Tissue Tape -- which doesn't even show through the colored vellum:
I decided to leave off an inside sentiment -- thinking it could be added later, for whatever occasion it is used. But a pretty swirl and divider from the Chalkboard Greetings Too stamp set was added in Berrylicious Hybrid ink, along with two more colored vellum butterflies.
{Vellum Butterfly Window Card Supplies}
Thank you SO MUCH for making it through this long post -- I sure hope it is a helpful insight into these fabulous new Hybrid inks! Please visit the MFT Blog to find a list of the other MFT designers particpating in today's challenge blog hop!
What great projects! I adore those stamped tumbled coasters...so very pretty! And thank you for the tutorial on the colored vellum. Very interesting!
Posted by: Celeste Goff | June 24, 2014 at 08:17 AM
This is so cool! I am going to have to try the window with colored vellum look! Awesome idea and design, Sharon!
Posted by: Betty Wright | June 24, 2014 at 08:31 AM
Thanks so much for sharing your experiments, and the beautiful results. This is something I could try!
You should know that when I first opened your blog through the link on an SCS gallery posting, a page opened, full screen, with an ad that ran without sound, and a count-down 'this ad ends in ----seconds.' Then it ended and would not close. I had to close that page, then reopen with the SCS link, and your blog opened just fine.
Posted by: Janelle | June 24, 2014 at 02:07 PM
Love, love, love your pretty coasters! Thanks for sharing how to create them! I'm going to have to give that a try. I also really like the colored vellum. You have such creative ideas!
Posted by: Robin | June 24, 2014 at 10:52 PM
Wouldn't a coaster like this be pretty as a teacher's present for them to set on their desk with just a matching card? Oh the possibilities! Thank you so so much. Sometime could you possibly do a video of a coaster?
Posted by: Stephanie Johnson | June 25, 2014 at 06:42 AM
Thanks for providing such great tips on Hybrid ink and vellum!! Love it!!!!
Posted by: tricia b | June 26, 2014 at 08:09 PM
Thanks for showing how to color vellum and get smooth colors.
Posted by: Kraavo | July 21, 2014 at 06:20 PM