Give me a little SMOOCH

I apologize about the brief posting hiatus.  When I sat down a few days ago at my computer I had almost finished the entry I was working on.  Of course, that’s when my usually reliable ISP went on the fritz.  I logged back on my PC the next day to find that my almost completed entry was *gasp* gone!  I had a major college flashback to losing hours of work on a paper or project by forgetting to click that little save icon like a maniac every time you pause in your work.  I stopped, took a breath, and remembered that it was all just arts and crafts.  

But, alas, I have kind of lost my train of thought on that original post now, so my intended entry on Journaling Tips is just going to have to wait.  Plus I discovered some new pretty shinies to share with you all.  For the month of February my crop event was sponsored by SMOOCH ink.  These inks are acid free and come in darling little bottles that could easily be mistaken for nail polish.  Smooch is a great name for a product line of inks because that’s really just what ink can be to a scrapper, a little kiss of color on a page.    

Instead of a brush tip on the lid like a nail polish, there is a stiff foam applicator that comes to a fine point perfect for swirl embellishments, edge inking, and dot bordering.  In addition to paper, they can be applied directly to rubber stamps, or even to spice up plain brads and metal embellishments. 

Here is an example embellishment I made using an acrylic stamp carefully colored in purple and green smooch ink.  After stamping the golden yellow ink was applied in empty spaces within the stamped image.  I then inked the edges of the cardstock with the purple ink by simply running the applicator along the very side of the paper.  This simple addition of an inked edge to a white or other light colored image can really make it pop.  It can act as a visual border when you do not have room for a double matted page component.

The next SMOOCH products I were able to play with were the SMOOCH spritz inks.  The kit I had included four colors, Silver Foil, Cherry Ice, Electric Blue, and Vanilla Shimmer.  

These are acid free liquid inks with shimmery particles suspended in them.  Their application is super easy, but super messy.  Basically you just lay your item to be inked down and spray away.  They are fast drying and fume free.  However, you must do this on a covered surface, or even better in the official “Color Catcher,” or you will be an inky mess.  Thought you could be careful and you tried it on your kitchen table anyway and need a quick clean up?  Try a Lysol wipe instead of just a wet paper towel.  It really cleans the ink up instead of just smearing it around your work surface.    

Not to hype it up, really, but the color catcher is just a card board box that’s missing a side. 

It can’t even accommodate a full 12”x12” piece of card stock.  It did work well with the 8”x8” cardstock I tested the spritzes out on.  My first few sprays were pretty splattery, so I recommend playing around with some scrap paper before you spray away at your project. 

This is a background I created by spraying each of the four colors I had in each corner of a sheet of white cardstock and working outward from there, overlapping in the middle to create a marbled effect on the paper.

This background was created by covering a sheet of black cardstock in Cherry Ice colored SMOOCH spritz and then brushing in even, one directional strokes across the page with a small dry foam brush.  Many unique background patterns can be created on cardstock for scrapbook pages, or on a blank greeting card, or even on blank chip board pieces. 

This bird was created by spritzing three layers of Electric Blue spritz on a pre-cut chipboard piece with about five minutes of dry time in between.  I really went to town with the amount of ink I applied here.  This was more than a little smooch, it was a full on make out session.  The color was darker, but still iridescent in the light due to the shimmer in the ink.  Because I like my canaries spotted, I added the regular SMOOCH ink in a lighter contrasting color, yellow, by simply dotting the applicator on the edge to create a cute border.  How trendy looking is he?  What's a good way to spice up any craft project?