Stencilling with Alcohol Inks

Hi all.  I wanted to make a card using this month's technique of Alcohol Inks with Gilding Flakes over at Group of Seven Cardmakers, this is not a challenge as such but they have a link where you can add your card, and I decided to use the AI's with a stencil which is a chevron design called Turn Ahead by 'That Special Touch of ' which is being used for the first time, and Ranger AI's in Pool, Stonewashed, Indigo, Butterscotch and Lemonade, and also some WOW Gold Foil and Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes called Autumn Leaves.  The Yupo is Ranger Transparent 5" x 7".  I used a Zig Glue Pen for the fine lines to add the foil on the background, and a Zig Glue Stick with a wide applicator for the gilding flakes on the shadow behind the sentiment, and it is good for spreading the glue across the back of die cuts too.

I have been watching various YouTube videos about using stencils with the alcohol inks, and as I visit Heather Telford and I did find this video really helpful, I have left a link to it here.  I started with a mix of my colours adding them and then diluting and moving them about with Isopropyl Alcohol 99.9% dispensed into a little bottle with a very fine needle like nozzle, using an air blower that I bought a while ago.  I covered the piece and then whilst it was still very wet I laid the stencil over the top and continued to blow the air around, trying to move as much of the ink from under the stencil into the gaps and I even very carefully lifted bits of the stencil up and down to help to move it.  After removing the stencil when it seemed to be more or less dry, I then used a piece of tissue and carefully dabbed up some of the ink that had stayed, and it did remove some of it, but luckily the pattern had come out reasonably clearly and I was very happy with the result.  

I suddenly realised that I had not added the gilding flakes and decided instead to use gold foil which should really go on before the inks dry, although you can use a glue pen, which I did in various places following some of the edges of the pools of ink which inevitably form.  I thought I had a better chance of getting the foil to stick and gilding flakes do seem to go everywhere you don't want them..lol.  The foil did stick but in a rather random way and not quite as I had hoped they would.  I think I was too impatient and it is best to let the glue turn from blue to clear before removing the piece of foil, but nevertheless they did give  a lovely bit of sparkle which doesn't really show up in the photo.

I used a sentiment which is from Crafter's Companion which I have had for a while but this is its first outing, and I did incorporate the gilding flakes on the shadow piece behind the white die cut sentiment.  I find they make less mess by using a pair of tweezers to lift pieces of it onto the gluey surface and when the piece has a reasonable amount on it...it doesn't need to be completely covered, you use a scoochy - mine came with Indigoblu gilding flakes a very long time ago - or a soft cloth to burnish them.  Doing it this way made very little mess, and I just placed a piece of paper beneath to catch the little bits which were not worth putting back in the pot.  I added some foam behind the sentiment to give it a bit of dimension, and I cut the words twice to layer them before adding them onto the gilded background and stuck them down using the Zig Glue Stick.  

I'm sure a lot of you will feel life is too short to read all this and a lot will be made clear if you visit Heather's YouTube video, and there are a couple of videos showing how to use the inks and add the gilding flakes over at the Group of Seven Blog.  I think my belief is why make a simple explanation when you can go on about it for ten minutes...lol.  

I am also entering the following challenges:

NBUS Challenge - No. 59 Where we use our Never Before Schtuff. 
Stencil Fun February Challenge - Love/Hearts or Anything Goes.

Darnell who a lot of you will know has set herself the challenge of putting up a card every Monday following a rotational monthly theme the acronym for which is I.D.E.A.S.  -  Inks/Colour Mediums, Dies/Die Cuts, Embossing Folders and Anything Goes..where there is a fifth week in the month it will be Stencils, and has said that anyone who wants to join in is very welcome, and I am going to do my best to join the party every week.  I do have some die cutting on this card which is for Week 2.