Stamping With Blue Moon Creations

Blown Ink Technique-Thinking of You

The Blown Ink Technique was the first challenge over at new The Technique Twist challenge site.  Although I did not discover the site until after the challenge had closed, I wanted to give this interesting technique a try.

What you need: reinkers and a straw (or color spritzer tool).  That’s it!

Blown ink 007

I think normally this technique is used to make abstract backgrounds, but I wanted to make a more stylized design like this tree.  I simply ran thin lines of Soft Suede reinker up the side of my Whisper White card stock and gently blew through a straw to create the tree trunk and branches.  I also used my color spritzer tool to pump air, achieving some of the smaller branches coming off the main trunk and larger branches.  After the ink completely dried, I stamped the leaves using Gumball Green and the retired stamp set Branch Out.  The splatters found in the current stamp set Gorgeous Grunge would work just as well.

This was not my first try at this technique, and I learned some things along the way:

-I first tried using glossy white card stock.  The problem is that the ink never fully dries, especially if you have a thick line or a heavy glob of ink.  This makes sense as ink sits on top of the glossy card stock and is slow to dry.  If there is too much ink, it will never dry.  I tried heat setting it with my heat tool, but it blistered up, leaving splotchy dots.

-I then tried regular matte card stock.  Well, dye ink will dry almost immediately on regular card stock, not allowing enough time to blow the ink around.  So my advise is to work in small areas and quickly.  First, I ran a line of ink up the side of the card stock forming the main trunk and quickly blew through the straw.  I then added each individual branch, blowing through the straw quickly before the ink dried.

-To add the individual smaller branches, I found it is better to place a drop of ink on a piece of plastic (I used a butter container lid), pick it up with a metal object (I used the tip of a stylus), dab it on the paper, then quickly blow through the straw or add air using the color spritzer tool.  If you apply the ink directly out of the reinker bottle, you will have a big glob of ink that might be hard to blow around because it dries too fast.

Thank you to the ladies over at The Technique Twist challenge site for inspiration to try this technique.  It was fun and easy once I got the bugs worked out and I look forward to creating more.  Next time, I will make an abstract background!

Supplies Used (all supplies are Stampin’ Up!)

Stamp Sets: Sincere Salutations, Branch Out

Ink: Soft Suede reinker, Cherry Cobbler, Gumball Green

Paper: Sahara Sand, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White

Accessories: straw, color spritzer tool, stylus

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