The Wedding Tag: Watercoloring with Distress Inks - A Tim Holtz Technique

- by Anita Houston

I, along with many, took Tim's Creative Chemistry 101 online course, and learned a plethora of amazing techniques. One of which was Watercoloring with Reinkers, but during the lesson he mentioned being able to do the same thing with Distress Inks on a craft sheet, even though he didn't demo it. I decided to try that out as my Reinker stash is low but my Ink stash is plenty.





1. The image was stamped on watercolor paper using Jet Black Archival Ink. Various colors of Distress Ink (Tumbled Glass, Fired Brick, Mustard Seed, Peeled Paint, Tea Dye, Black Soot) were applied on a craft mat, but not in close proximity to each other. 3 spritzes of water are added to each color, so that each color is watered down. Water pens are used to pick up a color from the craft sheet to color in the image.

2. Forever Red Perfect Pearls Mist is sprayed to a manila tag. When completely dry, the tag is inked with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink along the borders.  The watercolor color image is cut out and mounted to red cardstock, and cut out again.

3. Various word images are stamped on the tag for the background, using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink. A sentiment is stamped onto white cardstock using Jet Black Archival, then the edges are inked in Gathered Twigs. A crinkled, red, seam binding ribbon is tied on.






4. The Completed Tag

Anita Houston is a design team member for Frilly and Funky and Our Creative Corner.  She is also a 2012 guest designer for Artistic Outpost.  A self-proclaimed dabbler in "scrap-booking, mixed media art, painting, crafting, photography, cooking and baking, and the general hand dirtying fun", Anita and her lovely artwork can be found on her blog - The Artful Maven Haven.