One of the most overlooked parts of Stampin’ Up! catalogues has to be the Host section at the back. Lots of people think that you have to host an in-home party to be able to benefit but that’s not entirely true. Anyone can earn Stampin’ Rewards (Host benefits) if their order meets the $200CAD threshold. Stampin’ Rewards are great because you can spend the ‘dollars’ on anything. But for me the best part is it allows me to get exclusive products that are not available any other way. The Prince & Princess Stamp Set is one of the Host stamp sets in the 2021/2022 Annual Catalogue and I finally got round to playing with it yesterday.

ANOTHER ALCOHOL INK EXPERIMENT

Alcohol ink effects are very trendy right now and I’ve seen lots of card projects using the technique. My first attempt was to decorate a plastic foaming soap dispenser and that worked really well. So when I realised that a notebook I’d bought recently had a ‘plastic’ cover I couldn’t help but try it on that too. The fact that the cover was blue wasn’t going to put me off.

The technique is simple enough, using Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers and 99% isopropyl alcohol. I chose four different coloured Stampin’ Blends; dark Misty Moonlight, Melon Mambo and Cinnamon Cider, plus light Basic Black. First I wiped the cover with the alcohol to make sure it was clean, then I set to work randomly scribbling areas of colour using the brush tip of the markers. Finally I used a Water Painter filled with the isopropyl alcohol to ‘activate’ each set of coloured patches in turn. As I did so the pigment began to move to give that signature alcohol ink effect.

After going over the whole cover I left the alcohol to try for a couple of minutes. Once it all looked dry I scribbled on some additional colour in some of the larger open areas. Then I went back with the alcohol-filled Water Painter and wet the new areas of colour as before. I continued doing this until I was happy with the results, and finally set the book aside.

FROG PRINCE

Now it was time to pull out the Prince & Princess (Host) Stamp Set. This set is so sweet with quite large frog and swan images, plus other smaller images and seven sentiments. The catalogue is a little deceiving in that all but one of the stamps are shown at 60%. So I must say I was surprised at how large the frog (and swan) were in real life.

Anyway I decided the new notebook cover reminded me of water so I decided to put the large frog on the front.

I began by stamping the frog onto Cinnamon Cider Card using Cinnamon Cider ink. Then I coloured him in using Cinnamon Cider Stampin’ Blends. Using Stampin’ Blends on coloured card is something I’ve been doing quite a bit lately, although this is the first time I’ve tried colouring card with the same colour markers. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the result. All I did to finish him off was add a little light Old Olive to his spots.

Finally I used Paper Snips to cut out the frog image. Then I attached him to the notebook cover with Multipurpose Liquid Glue and my project was complete.

I love how this little experiment turned out. I did think about adding the small crown image to the frog, but decided against that. Maybe next time.

Have you tried playing with Stampin’ Blends and isopropyl alcohol yet? It’s a lot of fun and I’m enjoying finding out for myself what I can do with this technique.

If you missed my earlier alcohol ink project, check out my blog post Alcohol, Stampin’ Blends, and a trip to the bathroom.

That’s all from me for today. A thunderstorm has developed and I’m keen to disconnect my computer from the power. It looks like I’ll just have to spend the day crafting instead of gardening. Oh well…

PRODUCT LIST

For more information about how to earn Stampin’ Rewards, along with the exclusive Host stamp sets and paper, see page 170 and 171 of the 2021/2022 Annual Catalogue. You’ll also find an additional host stamp set on page 78 of the new Mini Catalogue that goes live for customers on August 3rd. More about that nearer the time.

I purchased the 4″ x 5-1/2″ spiral bound notebook at Dollarama. The 99% isopropyl alcohol came from a local pharmacy.