Creating a Unique background Paper

Hi, it's Marlene here.  I hope everyone had a nice weekend, I got to spend part of mine scrapbooking so I'm happy.

Thursday, June 21, Nancy posted a marbling tutorial on IFS.  It gave me a idea.  I wanted background paper reminencent of mahogany bark for a page about my adventure into a rain forest so I used a similar technique to make my own.  The two pager I had planned was 12 x 12 and my non-stick craft sheet (like Nancy used) was too small.  I have only managed to accumulate 3 distress inks and all 3 are the wrong colors. I improvised with the back of a Cricut mat and alcohol inks.

 With the 6 different colors of alcohol inks, I randomly applied dots of color, like this first illustration.  When I had the mix I wanted  (you have to work quickly because alcohol ink dries quickly), I pressed a sheet of white paper on the wet ink.  The colors were a little bright for the natural look I was going for so I applied Staz On Dove Gray ink with a rubber brayer to muddle the colors some.

I used this technique two different times for the two pager I had in mind and here is the result.