Hey hey! Elaineabella here with another Stamp It Saturday post. I’ve got a fun and easy tip for creating gorgeous mermaid tails, plus at the end of the post there’s a Copic colouring video for the new Tiny Townie Mermaid stamp set.

Mermaid Tails with Distress Oxide Inks

Today I wanted to share a really quick tip for creating gorgeous mermaid tails without too much time and effort! Perfect if you’re waiting on the new Tiny Townie Mermaid stamp set to land on your doormat!

Basically, create some background pieces using the “Ink Smooshing” technique – smoosh the ink pads on your craft mat, spritz with water and then lay your paper on top. You can do this with Distress Inks too, but the unique properties of Distress Oxides mean that if you dry between layers, you can layer up the ink to create some really interesting effects. This is great for building up textures that look awesome for things like paper piecing mermaid tails!

For more on Distress Oxides please see my previous post – Stamp It Saturday Checking Out Distress Oxides with Elaineabella.

Distress Oxides really come to life when you spritz them with water. You can also use either a shimmer spray like Glimmer Mist, or add something like PearlEx or a similar pearlescent mica powder to a water spray bottle, which I have done on the background pieces I used for the mermaid tails.

Just look at that texture! I added some shading to the tail using Copic Markers in a few Cool Greys, just to define things nicely. The Distress Oxides I used for this particular tail are: Cracked Pistachio, Broken China, Faded Jeans.

The orange tail is possibly my favourite, look at the texture created by the water… Again, I added some shading using Copic Markers, this time in a few shades of Warm Greys. The Distress Oxides used: Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick.

Here are a couple more pieces I have created for this purpose too. You can really see the layering effect on these, so cool.

I like to make several background pieces in one sitting, and keep them on hand for things like this. Depending on the size of paper you use, you can get several mermaid tails out of one piece, so it’s a really time efficient method, and it creates such beautiful results. The Copic shading is minimal, and just helps to define the detail of the tail.

NOTE: If you only have Distress Inks and not the new Oxides, you can still do this – you can absolutely achieve beautiful textures and effects using Distress Inks and water in a similar way, it’s just a little different. You can’t layer the inks in the same way because they don’t have those pigment ink properties, but you can do ink smooshed backgrounds and add texture using water or shimmer sprays.

I’m just awaiting the arrival of my coordinating die set so that I can get some gorgeous mermaid cards made to show you! Watch this space!

Tiny Townie Mermaid Set Copic Colouring Video:

Watch the colouring process below or in HD over on YouTube. You can see a different way to create a beautiful textured mermaid tail – using Copics and Colorless Blender in a spray bottle.

Full Copic Marker info is provided in the video.

Over To You!

I hope this has given you some inspiration! Have you got any other ideas? Feel free to share with us in the comments section.

If you try out the techniques shown in any of the posts with your Stamping Bella stamps, be sure to share! We would love to see the results and hear how you feel about them. Show off your creations in the comments below and even better, share your own favourite tips with us. Let’s talk stamping!

If you are posting your images online, we would love to see them on Instagram and all the platforms mentioned above.  To make it easier for us to find you just use #markergeekmonday and/or #stampingbella as a hashtag. Even better tag me @markergeek and @stampingbella . We love it when you connect, so don’t be shy!

If you’re on Facebook join us in our private chat group Stamping Bella Sistahood to share your creations there and chat all things Stamping Bella related!

Until next time, HAPPY STAMPING!

MWAH

Elaineabella