Tuesday 4 June 2013

Carol's Easy Ink Review!

Good Morning Splodgers,

How are you today? Is the sun shining where you are today? I hope it is.

HELLO to all of the new followers and THANK YOU for calling by.

As it is 'EASY INK WEEK' Carol has not one but several projects to show you all made using the SplodgeAway Easy Ink Card Stock.
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Hi All,
Well this time it is my turn to trial and test the Easy Ink Card. I have to say I really did put it through it's paces in several ways. I guessed a lot of the other Design Team would use it to show blending, so as I love to watercolour, all of my samples are geared towards that ........and I have to say water in varying quantities!!!!!
None of these items are difficult in themselves, but that was not my aim. Here it was to see how the paper held up to different watercolour mediums, different treatments and to see how strong it would remain.
 
Here's my first item. A simple stamped image on an easel card, matted and layered, but the pleasure was in the colouring. I used watercolour crayons for this. They moved easily over the card and the blending was easy. The water droplets are from Designs By Ryn and they just fitted my rainy day image. The Easy Ink Card was given a wash of pale blue following the stamping. the card remained firm and flat.
 
My second is a pair of bookmarks. This time I created the background, by soaking a sponge in water and colouring the Lyra watercolour crayons directly onto the sponge. I really wanted a soft effect and believe me the sponge was soaked!!! The Easy Ink Card was randomly sponged with various colours, making sure I dried between colours. Again, I was surprised how the card stood up to this treatment....but...it didn't warp or wrinkle. Great!! I added a few swilrs to one and some butterflies to the other from SplodgeAway masks and stamped the " this book belongs to....." and again watercoloured the image this time with watercolour pencils.
 
For the third sample I decided to take things a bit further with the water!!! I soaked the paper first and then with a wide brush went in with  colours in order of the rainbow. WOW did they blend easily. Not satisfied I decided to then cut them into 1cm. strips and weave them. The card was brilliant for this too after drying. Again it didn't disintegrate, there was no horrible bobbling and it remained firm and flat. I splonged the base card as before and punched flowers from some of the card left over from weaving....a few gems were also added.
 
Lastly but not least, I went all out for deep colour, lots of water, lots of colour on colour to see what would hppen. I was thrilled. I fyou pop in to my blog you will see the inspiration for this piece. I coated the card with a thick cream water colour base and then progressed in bold blocks with other shades of blue , drying after each layer. No bobbling, no wrinkling,still smooth and flat. The vase was stamped and then gingham paper attached and the flowers stamped, by masking. A great free Craft Stamper stamp. It looked good but to really test wanted to try and get a bleached effect on the flowers but only using water to dilute the bold background of the flowers. Have to say it took a while but the colours muted as I wanted and the card....well it literally took everything I could throw at it in regards to watercolours and water. It stood up so well.
Brilliant card, loved it best of all as it didn't bobble or wrinkle and remained firm.
Hope you're all going to try it you won't be disappointed.!!!
Carol xx
WOW...Hasn't Carol been busy. Thank you so much for a great review on the card and I love how you have tested the card to its capabilities...FANTASTIC!

Check out Carol's Blog for even more inspiration..

Has Carol tempted you to buy some Easy Ink? The Easy Ink is available from the SplodgeAway website priced at £4.99 for 25 A4 sheets.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see what Zoe thinks of the Easy Ink Card.

Enjoy your day

Susan xx

6 comments:

  1. Gorgeous projects and a fab review, great to see the Easy Ink card used for so many different techniques
    Claire xx

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  2. You certainly gave it a good testing. Thanks for being brave so we can splodge away with confidence.....

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  3. Fabulous review and samples Carol. Well done and congratulations and welcome to the team xxx

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  4. Fantastic creations. I love all the colours you've used.

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  5. Great review. Thanks so much. I am getting seriously interested in the Easy Ink paper.

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