Making my Own Papers

No, I'm not cutting down any trees, but I am using different methods to give me a wider variety of paper colors and designs.

I recently heard about some unique paper called Color Me. Its where you can use inks to create your own color paper with a design already printed into the paper. Since I'm impatient and couldn't wait for this paper to arrive, I thought I'd do some experimentation.

In my paper stash, I had a package of White Elegance from s e i. Its a white on white paper,described on the stack as "pearly foil papers". I had made a wedding book with this paper and had some larger pieces to experiment with.

I first tried Distress Ink with a cosmetic sponge and applied it to the paper. Now, I'm not the greatest when it comes to inks (or anything messy for that matter) But I was happy with the results. Here are some of my experiments.

I received a different effect with each patterned paper I used. I have always loved the watercolor colored papers and designs and that is what I was going for. The paper would soak up the ink more in the "unglazed" areas of the paper and depending on how much or how little was on the paper is how light or dark the paper became. I did use a clean cotton square to rub the ink into the paper and to remove the ink on the glazed areas. All these are great for future card backgrounds

I used glimmer sprays on the next three examples. I was not very happy with these, as they (I used Luminart Radiant Rain) have a high water content and will warp the paper. If I want to use these, I will need to flatten them out. The effect is ok, but I really liked the inks better. I had more control over how much ink and where I wanted it and the ink didn't soak up the paper like the spray did. Because of the high water content, I only used one color on a card.

Then I attempted to do an entire page. I used Bazzill's fairly new Glazed Cardstock. This one is white with white glazed images. On this particular sheet, its cupcakes. This is how it came out.

Pretty cool, eh? This will be great for a birthday layout for one of my granddaughters book.

So, with all the inked papers I had, I was able to create a few cards.

The first card was made with images from the Cricut Pagoda cartridge and the greeting was cut using Paper Lace.

I also used Paper Lace on the circle design with greeting.

Hope you enjoyed today's features. I love creating my own colors of paper and I'm anxious to find more papers that I can use with this method.

Tomorrow, I will show you the papers I created using my Imagine!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Koala-t hugs,

Cathy