Veined Paper Technique

I was playing around the other day with trying get more of a textured look to my papers and I hit upon this really cool technique to create veins of color on my paper.  

For this technique you'll need Copic re-iners, non-stick craft sheet, blending solution, vintage paper, spray bottle, iron, and heat-proof ironing surface.

To start off, fill your spray bottle with blending solution and then spray your paper till it's wet then crumple it up in a ball:

Then take your re-inkers and place a couple of dots of color on your craft sheet.  Using your spray bottle, spray some blending solution onto the craft sheet as well.

Now take your balled up piece of paper and place it in the inks.  It's Ok to squish it around a bit. I actually pick mine up and roll it around a bit, with out opening it up.

I let it set for a few minutes balled up and then I gently unwrap and lay out.
 Then, taking the iron on a low heat setting I iron the paper out.  You should be careful how hard you push when you begin ironing since the paper can actually fuse to the bottom of your craft iron.  I like to do a slow stroke in one direction and then lift and repeat.

Once it's dry it'll be totally flat again, but you'll be left with an interesting pattern:

Now the really cool thing, is that as amazing as the front looks--the back looks even better:

Look at all those gorgeous white veins running through the paper! It reminds me of ice on the window.

Here is another example I did in brown and green:

And the back:

The Veins on the back of this one didn't turn out so much white, as they did a pale green.  I assume it has something to do with the way the color reacted to the blending solution.

So that's it for me today.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend!