The Smooshing Technique - Creating a background using Distress Ink Pads.

I love creating inky backgrounds, it’s one of my favourite things to do. Distress Inks (and Oxides) are perfect for the “smooshing” technique due to their water reactive properties. It’s quick and easy to do and each background will be unique. If you like neat, uniform and perfection then this probably isn’t the technique for you. But if you enjoy grungy, inky, messiness then read on to find out how I created two completely different backgrounds using the same process and exact same colours.

The colours I chose were Salvaged Patina, Twisted Citron and Peacock Feathers. I love this colour combination, it’s one of my favourites.

I use an inexpensive baking liner to smoosh my ink pads on as it makes the ink bead nicely, which is what you want to create a textured background. Sometimes my glass craft mat doesn’t create this effect. I also used two pieces of 300gsm smooth white card cut into approximately 7.5x15cm each which I will turn into tags. You need as well a small spray bottle filled with water, a heat tool for drying and a little kitchen paper for mop ups.

To begin i pressed my salvaged patina ink pad several times onto my liner, spritzed with water a couple of times creating beads of ink.

Next I take my card panels and tap them over the ink. I don’t press down or swipe them through it, just gently tap.

I repeat the process transferring ink to the card.

I now wipe away the excess ink on the liner and press down twisted citron onto it, again spritzing with water. Now this is where things start to change.

One of my pieces of card I tap straight into the ink several times. Because the ink from the first layer is still wet the two inks begin to blend.

The second piece of card I dry with my heat tool before tapping into the inky beads. Because I’m adding wet ink onto dry card the inks are layering, creating a pattern of shapes and texture. I again wipe away the excess ink from the liner and add my final ink, peacock feathers to the liner and spritz with water. The “wet” piece of card I again tap into the ink.

The inks are really blended now and the card is fairly saturated. I dry the other piece of card and repeat the tapping process adding the final layer of ink. The result is a magical, organic, textured background. You can clearly see the three different colours I’ve used on this piece of card whereas on the “wet” card the colours are less defined and more or less one blended colour. There’s absolutely no right or wrong to this. It’s which outcome you prefer as to which process you use.

A little tip to remember is… wet on dry creates layers and wet on wet creates a blended background. For a blended background you need to be really careful of your colour choices as they mix together there’s a risk they could turn into a muddy colour.

I now dried both pieces of card using the heat tool.

To add a little more interest to the backgrounds I decide to add some water spatters. This can be done by spritzing with water straight from the spray bottle or spraying a little water onto your fingers and flicking the water onto the card panels. I chose to flick as I can get larger water droplets.

The textured layered card panel was set aside to dry. The other panel I dabbed clean kitchen paper over just half of it. This sucked out the colour leaving light “faux bleached” spots. I then left it to dry naturally but you can again use your heat tool to quicken the process.

Once both pieces were dry I could see how the original layered inky background had just a little added points of interest. The blended background you can clearly see the water spatters. The half where I dabbed with kitchen paper had almost white spots whereas the half which I left has pools of white with an inky outline.

I think I like the outlined spatters the best. Which do you prefer?

I hope this little inky tutorial has been helpful and I hope you’ll have a go. Have fun and happy crafting!