How to make Inkjet Water Transfers

I've started to make some fabric ATC's for my radiant rain pocket book.I'm using cheap calico as my base and thought some people may not know how to make inkjet water transfers.I read about these years ago and just couldn't get it in my head that they could be that easy.I'm a very visual person and it wasn't till I did a class with Nina Bagley last year and she showed us how to do them that it sunk in that they were really easy to do.
Anyway I just did a quick video to show you how to do them and that they are indeed easy.I forgot to tell people that in Oz the best glossy photo paper I have found that works for this is the one above.I buy it in Woolworths and it is quite cheap.I've tried several others and the good ones ?absorb the ink too well and the water wont transfer the image like it does in the video.In the USA they can get one called Jet Print Photo that works for this.OH and the Durabrit inks that some inkjets now have do not work either.The calico I use is unwashed.
If you give this a go you learn quickly on how much water is too much or too litte so don't expect perfect results straight up.If you use too much water the image will bleed colours and you wont have a crisp image transfer.If you use not enough water this causes the transfer to be very patchy.If I peel it up a little and notice areas are patchy I lay it straight back down and rub some more.If it's still patchy I lay the image back down and turn it over.Wet your finger in water and dab it on the back where you know its patchy and rub it in gently.Turn it back over and then peel it up and it should be fine.I'll try to embed the video within the post for you below

Radiant Rain and Opals

WOOPS...I accidentally deleted this post so here it is again LOL.Here I have mixed some Radiant Rains with Franklin clear Opals embossing enamels.I'm hoping to use the custom made mixes to stamp some images on to go in the ATC book I am making.I tried a bit last night and the Radiant Rain and Opals don't seem to want to mix too well.I'll have a further try today before work but if all is lost I have my usual gorgeous Opals colours that I can use.Now I have had to uploaded this again I'm thinking I'll get some more shots of my Radiant Rain sprayed thin Vilene Opal paper house pages and do that as a separate post.I'll make some thick vilene Opals paper so you can compare them as well.I did spray some Radiant Rain straight onto heavy weight vilene and the shimmer sort of disappeared...wonder how they take to being stamped and then add the ironed on Opals...aaaahhh brain is going into crafty ideas over drive LOL.Pity allot of these thoughts come off bad when I actually try but it is all fun and good in the end :o)

Radiant Rain Pages

My Radiant Rain sprayed vilene and tissue pages are dry now.Below are the stamped pages.I have stamped using Lumiere's,fabric paints and acrylics using Asian images from After Midnight art stamps.The sheets are A4 size so I had to stand back a bit to fit the four pages in.

Then I folded each A4 sized page into passport folds or ATC holders.There are two ATC holders on each side of the single folded page to give you four pockets.I got up really close to the pockets so you could see the detail when I photographed them.The images below show one side only.There are two pockets behind each image as well

Now to fill the pockets...I'm thinking of doing fabric ATC's and also using the Opals and Radiant Rain mixes I made to stamp Asian images with.Then I want to tie all the pages(16 pockets) together to make an ATC booklet.Well that is the plan but we will see how it all works out LOL

A Good Man Or A Hard Man

Yeh I only have a few more tissue and vilene backgrounds left now...thing is I love how it takes layers of colour and is sturdy enough to bend as well.I really think I'll be making more things from it but will go for some bright colours in my next batch.My inherited sense of humour got to me again here with the Good man card above until I stopped myself that is.I made this for a visiting stamper Nola Muirdock.Her and I were in a chunky book swap last year.I had never met her in person but her and her hubby are currently in Darwin and Nola wanted to meet me.Like many of us paper crafters we can't meet another paper crafter without making them something if we have the time.....so hence the card above I made to give to her.
I so wanted to be a bit cheeky as I love hiding elements in pieces but I had no idea if Nola was conservative or anything like that.What I had wanted to do was put the words for "good" and "hard" onto a thin magnet or Velcro so they could be removed and their position changed LOL.Anyway I decided to just leave it the way it was so as to not offend her just in case.As it turns out she is a gorgeous person with a warm and funny manner about her and I doubt she would have minded at all.She laughed when I told her what I was going to do with the words and loves the card which I am glad for.The card was very hard to get a good image of as the gel medium,shaky hands and my flash were not complying with each other so Nola eventualy got the picture above for me.I've since replicated the card and did the magnet thing for my Father-in-laws birthday last week...and he loved it *grin*...still waiting to hear from Mun :o)

Sweet Thang Collage

Mother's day is this Sunday here in Oz(Australia).I'm still using up my pre made Vilene and tissue colour wash spray stained backgrounds and decided to use one to make my Mum a card.My Mum has a really funny sense of humour even though she is quite religious.I was browsing my vintage images and just loved this one.She looks just like she accidently did something wrong...like uuummm broke wind LOL.As she had a posy of flowers I came up with the caption "one should carry sweet smelling flowers the day after eating baked beans".Did some stamping with white gesso,added some Cuttlebug texture paste elements at right,painted gauze,Golden acrylic paint washes,painted German scrap and added some lovely decorative corners and the "sweet thang" was done.Hope Mum thinks it is funny or I am in deep trouble LOL. Happy Mother's Day.