Rich Autumn Sunflower

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all having a wonderful day!  Today's project uses alcohol inks and background flower dies that give a unique beautiful look!

Here are the supplies that I used:

• Background flower die
• Ranger Alcohol Ink cardstock
• Ranger Adirondack Alcohol Inks: Sunrise Yellow, Sunset Orange, Butterscotch, Espresso, Pesto, Citrus, Alcohol Blending Solution
• Q-tips
• Scrap piece of cardstock 
• A2 size kraft cardbase
• Sheet of Mirriboard or other Specialty paper
• Glue
• Metallic or regular brush pen (same color as Mirriboard)

The first thing I did was set up my workspace.  I laid down the piece of scrap paper to lay my work on.  I have a craft mat, but these alcohol inks love to stain, so I laid down the scrap cardstock.  I put out my inks in color groups and uncapped them, as well as the blending solution and had the Q-tips out as well.  I laid down my piece of Alcohol Ink cardstock, then took my die to eyeball where the center of the sunflower was and where the petals were.  I started by applying the Espresso to approximately where the center of the flower was.  I put down 3 drops and then went in with the Sunset Orange and added 3 drops of that as well, trying to make somewhat of a circle.

It helps if you apply drops, let them dry and then come in with more color.  If you don't let it dry first then subsequent colors will merely blend instead of giving hard edges.  On my first layer, my brown was still wet when I put in the orange, so it was quite well blended.  But further coats of the same colors I let dry to get the hard edge effect.  I put 3 coats total of both colors.  Then, once again, I took my die and while holding it in one hand over the paper, I went in underneath first with the Yellow Sunrise.  I knew that it would be impossible to get the edges perfect, so I just estimated where the petals stopped.  This time I used 3 colors: Butterscotch, Sunset Orange and Sunrise yellow.  I dripped color, let it dry, then dripped on more.  Occasionally I would move the color a bit with the Q-tips, but letting things dry then adding more color.  Next was the green and I used Pesto and Citrus, using the same technique of dripping color, letting it dry, then adding more.  I wanted the color to be fairly intense, so I did add a bit of blending solution to a Q-tip and added that, but not very much.  The blending solution will fade out the color quite a bit.  I also added a bit of Butterscotch and Espresso to this green area with a Q-tip because I only wanted a little bit of variation.  My finished panel looked like this:

I have seen videos where before the ink is completely dry a foil sheet is laid on top and it will stick to some of the denser ink patches.  I did try this and got a very little patch which was disappointing because I like the look.  It could be because my inks are quite old...like 4 or 5 years.  More experimenting on that later!  

I then cut the panel of Mirriboard with my die.  Because this has a white core, I used a metallic brush pen to ink all of the edges.  This really doesn't take very long, but the results are worth it.  A metallic Sharpie would work as well.  I glued my die cut onto my alcohol panel, using the center of the flower as a guide to placement, then trimmed off the excess.  I mounted this onto a piece of shimmer paper and then onto my Kraft cardbase that I had covered with the same Mirriboard.  And that completed my card.  I didn't add a sentiment, but if I need one, I will most likely die cut one from the same Mirriboard.

There are a number of flower cover dies that this would work well with.  I have another one that I may use, and perhaps use different colors of ink!

Experiment and see what you can come up with!  Alcohol inks are fun to use and the results are often times stunning!

Happy paper crafting and remember....

        it's only paper!

Betsy