Playing with a new background effect ......

I came across this technique on Val Brincheck's blog - it's a way of creating a "rusty" metallic appearance on your cards and has the intriguing name of "Drunken Scotch"!  Check out the full instructions for trying this out by clicking on the link above and then click onto the post for 17th March.  It's a pretty simple, straightforward technique involving spreading water-based glue over the base card, dribbling alcohol inks over the top and then heating it all up with a heat gun. 

For my cards I used PVA glue (all that I had) and experimented with a variety of alcohol inks (mainly Butterscotch, Terra Cotta, Red Pepper, Aqua, Lettuce and Pool).  Here are the results:-

I dropped the ink on this card in "puddles" so the colours didn't seem to blend together so well.

See how much more the colours have blended together here because I trailed the ink across the cards.

I love the colour combination in this card - Buttercotch, Aqua and Lettuce.

As you heat up the ink, the glue creates bubbles, which gradually sink back down onto the surface.  As you can see on this card, I touched the surface with my finger before the ink/glue had completely dried and it pulled some of it off, revealing the white card underneath (see top left of card) - not a problem, I'll just cover up that part of the card with an image or embellishment.

Here I've covered a 5" x 5" mountboard square and I'll be using this as the base background for my "Heavy Metal" page in the Grunge Chunky Book.  (Haven't decided what else will be going on this page yet though)!