Drip, drip, drop, little Oxide showers...

Hello all!  Just dropping in with some more Oxide backgrounds.  They'll turn into tags soon, but I loved these so much that I thought I'd give them a little airing of their own before they get covered up.

I only took watercolours with me on my recent trip to the Czech Republic, as I knew most of my time would be taken up with doll-making (I'm in the process of writing the post, so you'll see them very soon), so I couldn't resist having just a little play with the Oxides as soon as I got home.

Again, I've been mixing them with regular Distress Inks - this, so far, is what gets me really excited about Oxide possibilities.

I just love the layers you can achieve.  It really gives oceans of depth to a tag.














I find it hard to cover them up at all, hence my sharing them before I've made any decisions about stamping or embellishing.















With these vivid sunset/sunrise colours, I in fact started with a set of Oxide smears (on the left) and a set of Distress smears (on the right) side by side (not always the exact same colour by name).














So one tag started by being dipped in pure Oxides, and the second tag started its journey with pure Distress.














After that, though, I dipped and dived from one side to the other in turn, spritzing with plenty of water as I went...














... sometimes dabbing away excess ink with paper towel, and sometimes being patient enough to wait until the heat tool had dried it all.














Another thing I'm enjoying about the Oxides is how they're encouraging me to step outside my colour comfort zone; and from my quick visits around Craftyblogland, I don't seem to be the only one experimenting with the rainbow!

There are some other rainbows developing in my crafty life at the moment, but more of that another time...








Having said I'm enjoying the rainbow, reaching for my favourite colours still takes me to my happy place.  For this trio, I started with only two tags, and a mixture of blues and browns (plus Iced Spruce), Distress and Oxide, all on the craft mat together...

I smooshed, spritzed and dried over and over again.  The more you keep going, the more you discover.  It's hard to stop!

Sometimes I added extra Oxides to the mix on the mat...
















... sometimes extra Distress...
















... and often just extra water (either on to the mat or directly on to the tags).
















I love the look of rust seeping through cracks that is here in a couple of places.
















The initial two tags are fairly similar in colour intensity, but I only brought the third tag into play as a mop-up, so that's really got the palest shades.













The inks were well-diluted with water by this point, but still capable of so much funky detailing in the layering, spritzing and drying.











It's incredible how you can keep adding ink and/or water drops to such effect, even a long way down the smooshing road.  (As Tim said in his early demos, pure Distress would have turned to mud by now.)

So yes, I'm still loving the Oxide ride... and I haven't even got as far as blending them on to a surface, let alone stamping with them yet.

So much to try, and so little time at present...













My dollshouse dolls should be up next, so I hope you'll pop back to take a look at my efforts.

Oh, and if you missed my springtime shadowbox project as a guest designer over at Calico Craft Parts, do take a look - I think it captures the season quite nicely.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll be round for a visit soon, I hope.

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of the oceans.
Kahlil Gibran

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge they'd like us to Splash It On, meaning they'd like us to incorporate water.  Even though I haven't had a chance to move beyond the splashing yet, I wanted to share the fun I've been having.