Ink Stains: Top Techniques

Since we're celebrating 3 million page views I thought it would be fun to go back and see what some of your favorite techniques were and revisit them! I'm kinda bad about posting a technique once and calling it good...some of you have e-mailed asking for more demos of several techniques which I have yet to get to. It just seems like there are always new things I want to share, it's hard to get back to some of the previously posted techniques.

So, this week I AM going to post some of the most view techniques - FINALLY ;) LOL!!

The first technique I am going to revisit is Ink Oils! Originally posted way back in April of 2012 - it was a fun technique using very few supplies but packing a real punch because it not only colors your cardstock but turns it into vellum of a sort.

So here's what you need to get started...

Baby Oil
Dye Inker (memento)
Cardstock (Georgia Pacific)
Craft Mat of some sort to protect your work surface.
Old catalog (to help dry your papers out.

Squirt some of the baby oil onto your work surface. Add a drop or two of one or more colors of dye inker.

Use your finger or other tool to mix the ink into the oil. You're going to end up with lots of little bubbles of ink suspended in the oil which is exactly what you want. The more you mix the two the smaller the droplets of ink - you can mix it as much or as little as you like. This is where experimentation is the best.

Smoosh your cardstock into the oil/ink mix. Twist it, turn it and coat until the entire sheet of cardstock has been soaked with the mix. It's easy to see the oil soaking through to the back of the cardstock.

Then you'll need to set your cardstock aside to dry overnight. I usually sandwich my papers between pages of an old catalog. This will speed the drying process - the pages of the catalog soak up the excess oil. You may want to move the papers to new areas of the catalog a couple times as the papers get saturated.