Stamped and Inked Tiles

On Friday morning I did a class at our local stamp shop. It wasn't for making cards, but tiles. We used tumbled tiles. They are very porous and look fantastic when the inks fall into cracks and crevices. We used fairly smooth tiles for the first 4 tiles. Simply stamped, coloured in as desired and washed over with Twinkling H2O's or whatever you like. Yesterday morning I sprayed them with a sealer.

As I learned, anything done with a water based product will wash off, so if the tiles are used for coasters and need to be wiped off, of course you know what will follow. Here are the first four I did, and then I'll explain the next ones. And yes, those are kitty tracks you see on one of them. I did that at home, I thought it would look great having them trail across my artwork.

These are the inked tiles. We used the ones that have deep cracks and are more bumpy and rough than the first ones. From what I understand a student in another class made a bunch of them and used them to tile an area in her kitchen. They are very heavy tiles for something like that, so I hope it worked out for her. The inked ones are so quick and easy. We just dropped some alcohol inks onto a makeup sponge and added drops of the blending solution (the mix is 2-1, ink to solution), then we just sponged that onto the tiles. Let it dry a few seconds and then go again and repeat that for the depth of colour you want. For the cracks we just dropped the straight ink into those.

Next we used a gold leafing pen (or copper as I did on a couple). Using the solution on the sponge, no extra colour of ink, we sponged over the leafing pen. That causes it to react to the solution and spread the leafing until you get a marbled effect. Unfortunately that step doesn't show up in the pictures, but in real life, it does look really nice.

After it was all dry, we just stamped an image on and done. Quick easy and great gift items....To finish them, I just painted the backs with acrylic paint, and glued on some half marbles for feet. You could also use little felt pads. See you next time with what....don't know yet.... ;o)