A little while ago I decided to try the ink smooshing technique. Essentially you press an ink pad onto a surface, spritz it with water and then press card onto it. I had a lot of fun with the technique and decided to try it again. This time though I wasn’t completely happy with the results, the colours I chose made a really dark background. It wasn’t bad, just not what I had in my head. And the rest, as they say, is history…

INK SMOOSHING

So the colours I had chosen were Rococo Rose, Soft Suede and Night of Navy. I’d seen them in combination somewhere and it kind of stuck with me. This was a chance to get that combination out of my head.

So following the ink smooshing technique I first pressed the Rococo Rose ink pad onto my Silicone Craft Sheet. Then I spritzed it with clean water and pressed a piece of Whisper White Card onto it. Before giving the card time to dry I pressed the Soft Suede ink pad onto the craft sheet, spritzed it again and pressed the card down. Then I repeated the process with the Night Of Navy ink pad.

As I said, the result was dark and quite moody not what I had in mind, so I decided to try again. This time though, all I did was spritz more water onto the inky craft sheet and press a fresh piece of Whisper White Card on top. Hmm that was different, but in a nice way. So I spritzed the sheet with water once more and pressed a third sheet of Whisper White Card onto it.

By the time I’d finished had three quite wet pieces of card all using the same three colours but looking quite different. All I could do was set them aside for a while and let them dry naturally.

ENOUGH WITH THE INK

Today was the day I decided to actually do something with my ink smooshed card pieces. I chose the second one (not too dark and not too light) for today’s project.

I cut the layer to 2″ wide and wiped it with an Embossing Buddy to remove any oils and static. Then using VersaMark ink I stamped a sentiment from the Lovely Is The Day Stamp Set. I sprinkled the sticky ink with Gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder and tapped off the excess. Then after I’d removed a few stray specks I melted the rest with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).

By letting the card dry naturally it wasn’t horrendously warped, but I still wanted to strengthen it a little. So using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached the piece to a 2″ strip of Whisper White Card. With that done I shaped the top using the Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, and the bottom with the corner rounder option on the Detailed Trio Punch.

All I had left to do was thread some Petal Pink 5/8″ Organdy Striped Ribbon through the slot at the top and tie it in a simple knot.

My dreamy ink smooshed bookmark was quite a while in the making but I simply love how it turned out. The “Go where dreams take you” sentiment fits the background beautifully don’t you think? Now to find sentiments to suit the first and third layers I created. I’ll try to share them on my Papercraft With Me Facebook page later today.

To see my original ink smooshed project please see my earlier blog post Lovely Is The Day.

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Lovely Is The Day Stamp Set in a bundle with the coordinating Lovely Leaves Dies. Doing this saved me 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. Although I didn’t use the dies today I’ve included a link to the bundle in case you want to explore that option.