Wrinkle-free- that's the card not me!

While I was staying with my lovely crafty friend Judith recently, she helped me understand the mysteries of the wrinkle-free distress technque. Now I had tried this before and you would think it was simple, but there is nothing like being shown how to do it and given that I had often admired Judith's results from this technique who better to show me? This is the result of our playing, oops, I mean my learning.

So what did I learn to help me get a so much better result? Firstly use a good quality water colour paper and make the paper wet first as well as the ink on the craft sheet. Secondly build up the layer and dry thoroughly with my heat gun in between the layers. Thirdly, make good use of the way the ink beads in the mositure on the sheet and make a feature of that in the gaps that appear as your design builds. Lastly, to pat and press the paper onto the sheet gently, too much pressure obliterates the shape of the water drops and you lose the definition of the pattern.

I think the colours I used were Peacock Feathers and Shabby Shutters. I edged with a little sponged Chipped Sapphire, one of my favourite colours for edging panels.

I finished off by using a La La Land die from Judith's collection, diving into her offcuts box for blending colours. I love this die shape like a fern unfurling. Then I pinched some gem swirls from Judith's not insignificant gem collection! Lastly I used a sentiment from a Stampin Up set that has a lovely script font that I rather coveted in Judith's collection! I don't think this card will be sent anywhere, I am going to keep it as a reminder of a very nice crafty session during my weekend with Judith.

And not a Kaisercraft sentiment stamp in sight, although I fear there will be another post or two using them coming to a blog near you soon!

Elaine x