Saturday, September 13, 2014

Creating a Background with Bisters


I discovered Bisters recently at my friend, Verna's blog here and I was just fascinated with the look. Bisters are a water soluble wood stain product from Netherlands that you sprinkle on paper, spritz with water and beautiful colors appear. I am just a rookie at this, but am having fun learning. Bisters are sold here at the I Brake for Stamps site and there is a video there you can watch to learn how to use them.  They are so inexpensive, you can afford all the different colors! I also bought this Silhouette Lamp and several other gorgeous stamps by I Brake for Stamps and all were very reasonably priced. Check out their gallery here for some more lovely cards using Bisters.

I tried stamping after playing with the Bisters on some of my other attempts, but in this case I embossed the light post with black embossing powder first.  I sprinkled blue, green and yellow Bister powder on watercolor paper, although other thicker cardstocks will work fine with this technique too. I spritzed with water and just like magic, these lovely colors appear. If you are patient, you can wait for it to dry before completing the card. Or you can dry with a heat gun, but avoid the embossing or that will melt again. I colored the lamp light with a gold Wink of Stella brush, and added a bird from Impression Obsession. I die cut the "thanks" from Lil' Inker out of the background piece and again in gold and inlaid the "thanks" and the pieces back into the piece. I layered it on aqua blue and then on a gold card base. I had fun playing with Bisters and will be sharing more cards here as I learn more.

I am entering this card in the "Make your Own Background" challenge at Simon Says Stamp and the Outdoors challenge at Creative Knockouts.

5 comments:

Brenda said...

Wow this is such a cool card Karen! I haven't heard of this Blister stuff but I am loving the look so I'm off to check it out! lol Hugs, Brenda

Judy McKay said...

Beautiful card. Great colours and design. I need to find the product here. Love it. Thank you for joining us at Creative Knockout this week. Judy DT

Kim Heggins said...

You are so so brave to try new things and you always make them sound so easy and have such beautiful results and this is just one more example of that. Simply stunning!

Verna Angerhofer said...

Wonderful background with the Bisters and I love the images and elements you used on the card. Usually I make my background first and then emboss, so never was an issue with the heat gun that way. Possibly that might work for you too! I vowed I would not do any Bisters work for awhile, but you are surely tempting me again. Aren't they the most fun to work with?

Caryn said...

Well you learn something new everyday!! Love the effect you achieved with the Bisters - very creative.

Thanks joining us at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.
Hugs,
Caryn xxx