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

Posted By: Amy Solovay

This page was last updated on 8-27-2022.