Inking silk flowers tutorial

I've got these pretty ivory silk flowers from May Arts Ribbon (Item# 439-09) that I want to ink up and embellish so I thought I'd share this tutorial with you.  I like plain white or ivory flowers that I can color to my choosing to match whatever card or layout that I want to coordinate with.   I ended up making a trio of Thank you cards and used the Unity Stamp sentiment kit, Everything More, one of my all time favorite kits.  Um, it's on sale for a ridiculous price right now of $8.  You need it!

 

 

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So to start....Don't have a craft mat?  Me either.  It's on my wishlist.  Instead, split open a used bubble mailing envelope and use these.  Awesome and cheap.  Plus it wipes clean with a dry paper towel!  Some of us have to budget our crafty purchases, right?  Anyway, I chose 3 different colors and styles of ink to color my flowers.  Marvy blending box in Sunset, October Afternoon Sprinklers in Carbon Copy and Twinkling H20 shimmering paint in purple

Next, stamp ink directly onto your surface or spray ink, etc.  When stamping ink, I did this about 3 times per batch.  Only sprayed once from the Sprinklers as a lot comes out.

 Mist with a squirt or two of water from a mister. Picked up this 2 pk mister for $3 at Walmart.  I used a paintbrush for the October Afternoon Sprinkler and the H20's to spread out better.

Dab your flower in mixture until you have complete coverage (no need to do both sides).  I did about 3-4 flowers from each batch of color.

Allow to air dry.  If you're in a hurry, you could use a heat tool.  Just make room to do one at a time or they'll all go flying!   All in all, it took me about 15 minutes or less to color these flowers but now that I know what I'm doing, I could probably cut my time in half next time.

 

Here's the final result of what I did with the flowers....I embellished each one differently, using sequins and burlap string for the pink.  I cut the edge off a strip of lace and made "stems" for the blue with white sequins and used some purple mesh and sequins for the purple flowers.  Each were coated with some Smooch Glitz glitter polish.  I even colored some white veins with a white gel pen on the blue flowers and did some more coloring on the flowers with yellow and white watercolor. 

Ya Like?

 

 

And for the final product.....

 

 

I'm entering these into the Unity Stamp Friends with Flair challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Anything Goes

 

Additional supplies: May Arts Ribbon olive mini raffia bow ribbon, Memento London Fog ink, Tim Holtz distress markers, Tim Holtz Brushed Cordorouy distress ink, American Craft Taffy Ink, Stickles green glitter glue, Cuttlebug embossing