On one hand, I love ink pads in pretty colors — all of them. On the other hand, up until now, dye ink really hasn’t been my favorite. I’m a devoted pigment ink fan, for a number of reasons I won’t get into in detail here. Dye ink has its place, and I own bunches of dye ink pads — but most of the time, when I do a new stamping project, I tend to reach for a pigment ink as my first choice.

That changed this month, thanks to a fun challenge from Gina K Designs that I tried.

I had no idea there was such a thing as “water reactive dye ink”, and that this type of ink can be used like watercolor paints to achieve beautiful, soft layered effects. Gina K pointed out that there are multiple things you can do with this ink to take advantage of its water reactive aspects:

• You can create a blended ink background and then squirt it with water to create an eye-catching water droplet effect.
• You can also mix the ink with water and then paint with it just like you would paint with watercolors.
• You can apply ink to your stamp as you ordinarily would, and then spritz a small bit of water onto the stamped design before stamping. This creates a variegated watercolor effect that can be quite enchanting, depending on your design. I found this idea to be especially interesting with background stamps.

I had a couple of other ideas beyond the ones Gina suggested above:

• You can mix the ink with water (or not) and put it in a water brush pen. The ink goes a lot further if you add water to it, and you can create all kinds of interesting watercolor-y washes and layered effects using this method.
• You can dilute the ink with water and dribble the watered-down ink onto an ink-blending tool like this one. Then you can apply it to paper either on its own or with a stencil.

I used both of the above techniques to make the card you see pictured above. The watered-down ink blends beautifully when you apply it this way. Then you can stamp the same color at full strength for a lovely tonal effect.

The water reactive dye ink is exactly the kind of ink that the folks at Gina K Designs are offering for sale, so I just had to try it for myself. I bought 2 colors of the ink: “Jelly Bean Green” and “Cherry Red”. I also got a set of stamps that includes some imagery by Gina K Designs. This stamp set is called “Thinking of You” by the Stamping Village. The Stamping Village is a group of competing stamp vendors who collaborated to create several versatile and unique stamp sets. Gina K Designs contributed the lovely plant imagery and the “You Are the Best” sentiment stamp I used to create this card design.

I used these items together to experiment with making bunches of different stamped, inked and “watercolored” elements to use in my paper craft projects. It was a ton of fun, and I learned quite a bit from this challenge. I’m seeing dye ink in a new light, and thanks to this challenge, I like it better than I ever did before.

Pictured above is the first card I finished using these techniques. I love it! There will be many more to come!

Gina K Designs Products You’ll Need to Create a Card Like This One

• Jelly Bean Green Dye Ink Cube (which is a small ink pad).
• Jelly Bean Green Reinker
• Cherry Red Dye Ink Cube (which is a small ink pad).
• Gina K sentiment stamps of your choice; I used a sentiment stamp by Gina K Designs for the Stamping Village “Thinking of You” stamp set that says “You Are the Best.”

Other Craft Supplies You’ll Need for Making This Card:

• A spongy ink blending tool
• Washi tape: I used a pretty plant-themed washi tape by Recollections to make the sample project.
• Cardstock: I used Bazzill cardstock for the card top and Tim Holtz Heavystock for the card base. The paper I stamped, inked and watercolored onto is also Heavystock. There are many different papers that would work well for making a mixed-media, wet / watery project like this one.
• A water brush pen
• A heart template is optional, but useful. It’s also possible to freehand draw a heart and cut it out.
• Paper trimmer
• Scissors

I love the way this card turned out, and I can’t wait to make more paper craft projects using these techniques.

Thanks for checking out my card design. I hope you’re having a lovely and creative day! Best wishes,

Amy

More Card-Making Ideas Featuring Stamps and Supplies by Gina K Designs

• Slimline Card Making Idea Featuring Paper Flowers and Washi Tape

More “Inky” Card-Making Ideas

• 4 Ink Blending Techniques for Card Making and Paper Crafts: Tutorials Plus Project Ideas
• DIY Watercolor Floral Greeting Card With Ink Blending
• Hello Greeting Card Featuring Simple Flower Motif, Ribbon Bow and Ink Blending
• Hand Stamped Floral Birthday Card Making Idea Featuring Ink Blending
• Floral Bouquet Birthday Card Making Idea Featuring Ink Blending and Glitter Washi Tape

Find Our Main Directory of Card Making Ideas HERE!

By Amy Solovay

About the Author: Amy Solovay is a content creator and educator who holds a bachelor’s degree with a studio art minor; she has also earned a separate degree in textile design. Amy learned to stamp and stencil as a small child, and she still enjoys mixed media art techniques all these years later. Beyond that, she enjoys introducing other crafters to the best new craft supplies, and she also loves helping crafters learn new techniques for making the most of the craft supplies they buy.

As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles.

Nowadays, Amy uses online platforms to teach digital courses to craft pattern designers, content creators and influencers all over the world. If you’re an artist, crafter or DIY enthusiast who is interested in earning income from your creative work, you’re invited to visit Crafterprise.com to learn more about monetizing the arts, craft(s) and / or DIY projects you do.

Thanks for visiting!

This page was last updated on 9-13-2024.