Have you seen the gorgeous new Crackling Campfire Distress Oxide Ink color? Today EH Ambassador Jessica Frost-Ballas is going to share two fun ways to use the new color in your fall card creations!
Good morning! I just love fall crafting and the new Crackling Campfire distress oxide color is the perfect shade for fall! I decided to pair it with more warm fall shades, the beautiful Mondo Chrysanthemum, and two of my favorite inky techniques: watercoloring and smooshing!

To start I heat-embossed the Mondo Chrysanthemum with Hero Arts brass embossing powder on a piece of Tim Holtz distress watercolor paper. Then I watercolored the inside of the petals with Crackling Campfire and Wild Honey distress oxide ink, the outside of the petals with Dried Marigold and Wild Honey, and Mustard Seed on the center of the flower. Then I used Shabby Shutters, Forest Moss, and Bundled Sage for the leaves. I love using the oxides to watercolor because they’re opaque and almost creamy and are great for full coverage! It’s a different effect than watercoloring with distress inks and if you’ve never tried it before I highly recommend it! 🙂 Once I was done watercoloring I set it aside to dry completely and then die-cut the images with the coordinating dies.
While the images were drying I worked on my background! I love to ink smoosh and love how the backgrounds all turn out differently. You can never recreate the same look no matter how hard you try!

To start I take a piece of scrap plastic or acetate and smoosh a bit of Crackling Campfire, Dried Marigold, and Wild Honey distress oxide ink onto it. I like to use stamp packaging for this because it’s a bit more flexible than acetate. Then I spritz the inks with water and use my finger to move the ink around a bit to make sure there are no harsh lines from the ink pad.

Then I pick up the acetate, turn it over, and smoosh it onto the rough side of a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor paper. Using plastic gives me a little more control of where the ink is going and allows me to see what it looks like. I press it to the paper and then hold it in place a few seconds so the ink has a little time to soak in. Then I lift the acetate, shift it slightly, and press again. You can repeat this process until you’re happy with the coverage. Sometimes I’ll dry the panel in between smooshes so that some of the ink ends up being a bit more defined. Once the smooshing is finished I dry the panel and then splatter it with water and gold paint.

Next I adhered the mum and leaves to the panel with a mix of foam mounting tape and regular adhesive. Then I stamped a sentiment from ‘Tis the Season onto black cardstock and heat-embossed it with brass embossing powder. I trimmed it down to a thin strip and adhered it to the bottom of the card. Finally I added a few gold sequins and peach crystals to finish the card!
Thanks so much for stopping by and have an amazing day! 🙂
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2 Comments
Just beautiful, Jessica. Good instructions on smooshing too.
So beautiful, Jessica!