Christmas Stampin All Year Long Challenge #59 - Sketch Challenge

Hello Friends!! Hey it's Christmas Stampin All Year Long time again! The challenge this week is a sketch challenge so stop by CSAYL and check out the sketch and the pretty cards the design team created!! The winner this week will win a spot as our guest designer on one of the challenges! Be sure to play along!


I need to make this quick so I'll get down to business! As you know by now, I've been reorganizing my craft room. I came across all of my "pigment" ink pads and Stampin Up craft pads. There was a time when I heat embossed my images so the pigment ink pads were very handy. I love pigment inks because they are very versatile. . .they can be used to stamp images on anything as long as you heat set or emboss it.

Anyway. . .to make a long story short. .. .nowadays, I tend to color outline images usually with my Copics or some sort of coloring medium so when I came across my pigment inks, I thought of selling them because I haven't used them for a while now. Luckily, pigment inks rarely dry up. .. they can remain juicy for years! As a last ditch effort . . .I thought of a bright idea (yeah, I thought so. . LOL) I decided to try to use the pigment inks as a coloring medium similar to watercoloring.

I know water and pigment inks don't work together like it does with dye inks so I thought maybe alcohol would work. ..and you know what! It DID work.

I didn't use Copics or dye inks to color my image...I used pigment inks! OMG!! It colors nicely on regular card stock. Because alcohol dries quickly, the card stock don't warp and it also dries the pigment ink very quickly!!

The awesome part of it all is if you have the shimmery pigment inks like the Encore brand. . .you can add a shimmery effect on your image. The concept is similar to using dye inks like Stampin Up ink pads and water but instead, you use pigment ink pads and rubbing alcohol.

Just rub a bit of pigment ink on a plastic palette and dip a paint brush in alcohol and "water down" the pigment ink with the alcohol. You then color the image but you have to work fast because alcohol dries really quickly. You may need to dip it in alcohol more often than you would if you were using water in watercoloring. I'll see if I can post a tutorial some time soon but don't count on it. . .LOL! I still have to finish my craft room reorganization.

I know. . .long story but well, I'm happy to say that I'm keeping all of my pigment ink pads. . .I was actually ready to sell them all on Ebay. . .LOL! Well, they've been saved and they're all happy in my drawer! Yay!

That's it. . .hope y'all have a wonderful Friday!!