Bookmarks XXXIX: Paisley Tea

This bookmark fought me and fought me and I'm not entirely certain I've won. Still, it's hard to lose completely with a bookmark: regardless of its aesthetic appeal, it will certainly be successful at marking my place in a book.

I do not think I ended up making this bookmark out of any of the things I started with. I had visions of cherries and milkshakes and pink, like a pretty vintage ice cream advertisement poster.

Well, I have a cherry background I'm happy with. And I have a cute little milkshake all cut out and pink as you could wish. But the milkshake doesn't work on the background! If I don't back it with something, it blends in. If I do, the backing is awkward and pushes the cherry background into a red muddle. Argh!

So I put that aside, picked up some pretty purple paisley paper and a scrap I've been using to wipe up sprays from my craft mat, and made tea. Pretty pink & purple paisley tea. I whacked at some white lace ribbon with purples and pinks and added that too, to up the vintage quota.

I like the teapot, but I must admit that the teacup is a bit of a muddle: i.e., until I tell you that it is a teacup, it's just this muddled shape. D'you think it would be easier to see if I colored all the teacup parts in with the purple pen? Maybe I'll do that.

(I suppose it's fitting that this distressed piece of paper ends up being part of a tea bookmark -- its first round of distressing, way under all the pinky-purple, was Tea Dye Distress Ink.)

I'm entering this bookmark into the following challenges:

• Speedy Fox and Friends Challenge 129: Photo Inspiration (I took my inspiration from the swirl: swirly paisley, swirly steam, and swirly -- well -- swirls!)
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #190: Yummy Treat (I put a lot of honey in my tea. You betcha it's sweet!)
• Fab 'n' Funky Challenge #142: Vintage
• The Crafty Pad #192: Distress It! (that poor originally-white piece of paper has been crumpled, smeared around on my craft pad, soaked, and edged multiple times... it's not just distressed, it's downright harassed!)
• Hiding In My Scrap Room #67: Super Scraps Saturday (the white distressed cardstock is a scrap I've been using to wipe my craft mat after using sprays for a bit)
• Link Up For Pink (It's a dark, rather purple-y pink, and it has nothing to do with Breast Cancer Awareness... but it is pink.)
• Crafty Mess Challenge 19: Anything Goes

Supplies: (purple paisley cardstock is from Recollections/Michaels, and lace is Celebrate It Occasions/Michaels white 7/8")

Bookmarks XXXVI: To Sail Beyond the Sunset

I accidentally discovered a technique while making this bookmark, which means that although the bookmark is imperfect (oh horrors!) I might be able to do some cool stuff in the future.

See, I covered part of the bookmark with clear embossing powder before stamping on it. You can't see the clear embossing in the picture, but you can clearly see the difference between the part of the stamp on the embossing and the part off of it.

The stamping on the embossed part looks really awesome and watery. It's perfect for the ship's reflection. (Reflections are great for reverse stamping -- I wanted it to be a bit broken up anyway!) It's less perfect on the ship itself.

If I'd know this was going to happen, I would have put the ship right at the horizon, instead more towards us. Then only the reflection would have had the wateriness. Heck, maybe I would have put more sunset ink down in the water beforehand, because if I could get the wateriness there, it would be a gorgeous effect.

This was done with pigment ink, so I'm a little surprised it didn't just stick nicely on top of the embossing powder. This looks more like what I'd expect of a dye ink? I'm guessing the effect has to do not just with the glossiness of the embossing powder, but the texture -- except over the lower half of the sun, this was not a heavy coat, so it has a more up-and-down texture as individual grains spread and melted together but didn't form a uniform surface.

I definitely had to heat-set the ink here. Would that be unnecessary with something like a StazOn ink? Probably. Would I get the same effect with something like a StazOn ink? Well, if the glossiness is responsible, I probably wouldn't. But if it's mostly the texture, I probably would. This calls for more experimentation.

It's unlikely that this is some kind of breakthrough technique. If anyone knows of tutorials or technique posts about stamping on top of heat-embossed areas -- not resist techniques, but ones where the ink is supposed to stay on the embossed area -- please link them for me.

Has anyone noticed that sunset colors are pretty much fall colors? And that there are quite a few fall color based challenges hanging around? It's very poetic, since we might think of fall as the sunset of the year.

For example, look at DYSU's inspiration picture for this week's challenge "Warm Colors" and tell me it isn't just as sunset-y as autumnal:

It also strikes me that while this bookmark doesn't have anything to do with "sweaters" or "harvest", it does rather fit the "melancholy" word from the Loves Rubberstamps inspiration words:

(Of course, it also uses "red" and "yellow".)

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Do You Stack Up? #92: Warm Colors
• Pause Dream Enjoy #40: Purple & Orange (It's a reddish purple, but there's definitely a lot of purple and orange going on here.)
• Hiding in My Craft Room #66: Black, Orange, & Purple (plus a bit of red, I admit)
• Card Crafter's Circle #43: Autumn Colors (this is a bookmark, not a card, but the rules say tags etc. are okay so I think this fits)
• Loves Rubberstamps 20: All About Autumn (mainly using words "red" and "yellow", but also a bit of "melancholy". Uses Gourmet Rubber Stamps' Ship, which Loves Rubberstamps would still carry if I hadn't just bought it off them.)
• DL.ART Thankful Thursday: Halloween/fall colors or an owl or both (just fall colors)
• MilkCoffee: Welcome Fall (fall colors, fall as the sunset of the year)
• Little Miss Muffet 45: Simplicity (it's not one layer, but I think it fits as a CAS project)
• Crafty Mess 19: Anything Goes

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's October Anything Goes or Breast Cancer Awareness Linky Party.

Supplies: