In Love With Distress Oxides!

 Hi there Arty Peeps.
Peg here to share my new love.

So the CHA trade show, now called 'Creativation' happened in the US in January and as always I like to keep an eye on what new things are hitting the crafty market. Generally speaking it is usually more of the same but using different colour schemes and patterns. This year however Tim Holtz introduced a new range of inkpads - Distress Oxides.
Now I have dozens of different inkpads in my art room, pigment, dye, permanent, water-reactive, etc... and thought, seriously, how could these do anything I cannot already do with the ones I have?

Well they can!! They are a blend of pigment and dye ink (and, yes, I have some like that already) BUT they behave completely differently from anything I have ever used. They keep their colour when layered but also have a transparent quality. They are freaking divine!
I Googled them and watched this Youtube video by Jennifer McGuire to get a feel for what they could do. Then I went to town using my craft mat, water spritzer, some stencils, and the amazing Distress Oxide inkpads from Tim Holtz.

Background #1 - First I applied inks to my mat, misted with water and picked up the colours with a piece of Marshmallow cardstock, then dried. Next I applied the ink with a blending tool through a stencil and misted lightly before drying again. Lastly I flicked some water on it and dried using paper towel.

 Background #2 - LOVE this one!! The first 2 steps were the same as above. The last step I applied some ink to my mat, misted with water and picked it up with a Tim Holtz splatter brush and flicked it on.

 Background #3 with which I created the following layout. This one I started with the stencil and applied pink and purple inks with a blending tool, lightly misted with water and dried. I keep my inks clean by using a different foam for each colour. When it was dry I used it to clean up the butterfly stencil I had previously misted with grey.

When I made this page I trimmed my Marshmallow background, inked the edges, and matted it on black cardstock. I cut a couple of pieces of Hambly transparency to add some pattern without covering the pretty background, and I found an old piece of mulberry paper that matched. The chevron strips of paper and brads come from the 'Something Wonderful' range and the paperclip word is from Freckled Fawn (these are currently on sale!). The chippy 'love' and hearts are Heidi Swapp, as are the silver stars which I unearthed in my art room last week while searching for something else. I coloured the wood veneer with the Oxide Inks too, and typed the story on my photo.

Omg, so much fun!
Right now I am headed back to my art room to play with these inkpads some more. Seriously folks, it's true love!

'Til next time, stay arty.