Another Inkjet Transfer Tutorial

After visiting Inkstains with Roni and learning that she literally fell upon this neat inkjet transfer

by error, well I had to look into this.

Roni was using an ALL PURPOSE cleaner with Orange oil in it and well since here in Canada some of our products vary I thought immediately of Orange Glo. So I head out to buy Orange Glo while doing groceries, brought it home, tried it and no it didn’t work. Well I should have read Roni’s instructions a bit better because she said it was an ALL PURPOSE Cleaner, what I got was Orange Glo for furniture, it is a little heavier and more oily than I wanted thus it produced no results. Good thing I have wood furniture so I can still use it but I was still not going to be beaten by this result.

I was racking my brain thinking of what product could I get that had orange in it, well nothing other than Orange Glo but then I got to thinking and looking in my cleaning supplies and of course I had Pine Sol but with Lemon. I use it quite a bit now and love the lemon scent it has and just makes cleaning feel fresh but not overly sterile smelling.

So I opted to try it and I can’t wait to show you how very easy and readily available it is.

Here is what you need:

Pine Sol, I suggest Lemon Scent but if you have any other kind then try it first before running out to get the Lemon, the other Pine Sols MAY work but I am not going to tell you it does because I don’t have any other in the house.
A paint brush the size for an image, even a cotton swap would be fine, images either colour or B&W INKJET, receiving paper, cut size of ATC’s, use book pages, whatever you like even the center of a paper doily would be nice for a card and a small container to put some Pine Sol in. Bone folder for burnishing is optional as well as the cotton swabs, scissors for trimming images. 

Dip your brush into your Pine Sol.

Place your image face down on the receiving paper and brush the back of the image with the Pine Sol. You will start to see the image appear, keep brushing on Pine Sol til you have covered all of your image.

Now either take a cotton swap or your finger, doesn’t matter and start to burnish the image, keep moving around the whole image. Hold part of the image and lift to see how it is looking, if you are happy remove the image and look at your receiving paper. If you want to burnish it a bit more lay the paper back down and burnish a bit more even brush on a bit more Pine Sol.

Also something I noted, the inkjet ink does not bleed like other techniques, it stays put while you are burnishing, unlike Gel Medium which I do like to use just made this observation.

Now lift the image. You are done.

I now use my heat gun and dry the paper. Nice thing about Pine Sol is it doesn’t leave an oily stain on your paper which is what I was worried about.

Here are some other examples of the transfers here.

A tag, a Moo and an ATC.

Here is the finished ATC with the girl with the butterfly wings. I added a bit more to it since this pic but not much and of course dried now after hitting it with the heat gun.

Wasn’t that fun and so easy and something you may already have in the house.

I also tried Isopropryl Alcohol and it works but I found it wasn’t quite co operative with the colours, it sort of changed them and the image was not as clear most ghostly.

Thanks to Roni for her discovery for the Orange Cleaner and here is my discovery using Pine Sol.

Hope you enjoyed this, I would love to hear your feedback and would love to see your results.

Happy Creating ♥

Inkjet Image Transfer Tutorial

This technique is a much sought after and sometimes difficult to do if you are not aware of some of the little tidbits you need to know.

Here I am going to show you a stress free transfer you can use in your ATC's, journals even greeting cards.

Supplies needed: paintbrush, water container, gel medium (I have read you can use Elmer's glue or ModgePodge) I am using gel medium because I know it works for me, inkjet images from your computer, either B&W or colour, receiving paper(paper image is being transferred to) and a piece of paper towel and heat gun.

Apply a generous amount of gel on your receiving paper. Here I am using an old book page and putting my image in the center because I will later be cutting it to fit onto an ATC.

Next, place your image on top of the gel and make sure you have it positioned where you want it before burninshing (rubbing)  it onto the paper. Make sure it is well burnished, making sure the sides are pressed down as well. If they are lifted a bit, apply some gel. Do NOT put gel over the back .

Using your heat gun and keeping it moving so you don't burn the paper, move it over the image and dry the gel and the what is now the back of the image. Turn the paper over and continue drying that paper.

It is very important to make sure that your image is completely dry before moving onto the next step. If you do not have a heat gun you could use a hair dryer or let it air dry and do something else.

Dip your hand into the little container of water .....

now spread the water over the image making sure you have the paper damp. Don't be worried if you get the paper around the image wet, but do NOT saturate the papers.

As you can see here, the image is now visible but we still need to remove that layer of paper.

Starting at the middle of the image, start rolling your fingers over the image moving from center out and you will start to feel the paper coming off of the image. If you have the paper too wet or rub too hard you will start to damage your transfer so be gentle.

Here you can start to see your image and I let the bits of paper that I rolled off so you know what it is starting to look like. If you feel the paper, keep gently rolling it off.

As mentioned before it is best to start from the center, if you had started at the edges then you are apt to start to peel away the picture and you will become frustrated and not too happy. Been there done that.

Now take your paper towel and gentle smooth off the rolled paper bits and you now have just completed your first inkjet image transfer. Allow the paper to dry completely or hit it with the heat gun then proceed with your arwork.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and hopefully this post will land on my blog. The previous attempt landed somewhere but not here.

If you care to leave a comment I would be glad to hear from you.

Now off you go and lets see some image transfers.

Lesley's 12 tags of Christmas-Day 2

Hello again, this is the continuation of my 12 tags of Christmas and today I am showing one of my favourite techniques. If you recall I did a tutorial on Inkjet Transfer then you will really like this tag and I encourage you to try this, even on a small tag.

I must stress in this tutorial the key is to be patient and allow your image to dry completely before trying to remove the backing paper. Also reverse your image before printing so that when it goes onto the tag it will be correct, or if you like don't reverse the image and you will get a flip result. No rules to art just reminders in case you get frustrated.

Ok here it is, I did the distress technique on my shipping tag using Broken China DI. Then I hit it with the heat gun to dry the tag. Then I found a nice vintage image from FlickR, resized it to fit on the tag. I used a good amount of Gel Medium and applied it to the tag and then put my image face down onto the gel area, be sure to use plenty of gel. It will dry so not worries about having too much. I do NOT recomment putting it directly onto the image itself as it may cause the inks to start to bleed so just press your image onto the gel, brayer it or smooth it out with your fingers and make sure all edges are secured.

LET IT DRY. Do several at one time or do some more tags or have a cup of tea.

I do NOT recommend a heat gun either , I tried that but it does not ensure that the image in all areas are completely dry and when you have to add water to the back of the image, it may roll right off the paper in spots and then you become frustrated. These are just things I learned along the way so just be patient.

I have also used Modge Podge for paper and it works as well. LET IT COMPLETELY DRY!!!!!

Ok your image is dry, now the fun part. Get a little dish and dampen our fingers and the back of the paper, you will start to see the image appear. Roll your fingers around starting in the center. DO NOT start on the edges but in the center. Keep rolling and brushing away the bits of backing from the paper. Keep doing this and follow the tutorial with pics in the link I provided at the top of this post.

Ok now let the image dry and you can work around it. I printed off a verse for my tag, inked the edges with my same DI Broken China . I found some fun foam snowflakes and added some Diamond Stickles. Then I used some Starform translucent border, this stuff is great, it is repositionable so if it doesn't go quite where you want it you just carefully lift it off the paper and no tearing. Just smooth it down with your fingers after you get it where you want it. I bordered all around the image.

Ok now for one final little detail I did on this. The inkjet tranfers are sometimes a little faded so I took some pencil crayons and just lightly coloured back in the coats on the children and the leggings or pants. I even added a bit of pink to their cheeks. Make sure again your image is completely dry before coloring.

Then I added my snowflakes, ripped a bit of music paper and inked the edges added some blue fiber, oh and I added some snowflakes with my stylus dipped in white acrylic paint and that was it. I really like how this one turned out. Just may have to do another one of these or similar.

Ok everyone, remember leave a comment each tag post and I will be keeping track.

Thanks for dropping by and stay tuned for Day 3 of Lesley's 12 tags of Christmas



Inkjet transfers and what does Stodgy mean?

Ok first things first, I have heard somewhere either BBC or someone English use the term "Stodgy". I would like to know what that means...does it mean you feel stodgy, or something is stodgy and exactly how do you use this term. I have had this in my head for days now and want to know what it means. If you can help please leave me a comment because I like it and I want to know what it means.

2ndly.... today I tried for a couple of hours trying to do image transfers using the Bernie Berlin techniques in her ATC Workshop book. So far no luck. I used wet paper then tried to burnish the image with no luck at all.
Then I tried using gel medium and it stuck to my paper when I tried to remove the photo paper, so not only  did I waste material time and effort and much frustration. If you have any luck or can tell me how you do inkjet transfers please let me know.
I did however do a transfer using freezer paper attached to a sturdy piece of cardstock and then burnished the image onto some flat (not textured) paper. It seemed to work the best although I think the darker your image the better luck you will have. I have done the tape transfers but I am wanting the  aged look that this technique achieves. Well so far it hasn't and I need to know why and how to do it successfully.
I would appreciate anyone that could take a moment or two to explain it to me. I have researched it to death and perhaps it is the gel medium I am using. I put it on thick, I put it on thin but it wanted to act like a glue and stick to my paper. ugh....
I decided to turn my thoughts to painting so I did that instead after much frustration.
Til next time....