Brown and Green Smooshed Distress Ink Boxes for Lavender Sachets

My third post for today. I hope you’re keeping up with me. I’m on a roll with these boxes.

I’m not sure of the correct term for this technique, but I call it smooshing!

To go with two sachets with an orange colour scheme, I have made these two boxes coloured with distress inks. I cut two shapes from blank watercolour paper and began with Spiced Marmalade distress ink. In each case the front side (done first) was bolder than the inside (done second) as much of the ink on the mat had been used up; I didn’t mind a subtler effect inside the boxes.

To begin, I smeared the ink pad over my non-stick craft mat and spritzed it well with water. I then spritzed the watercolour paper shape with water and smooshed it around in the ink.

With this first layer, I smooshed it well, so there were no white areas remaining. I built up the layers starting with the lightest colour, and dried it well with my heat gun after completing each colour layer, and with subsequent colours, I did not blend them too much as I didn’t want the effect to be muddy. I love the randomness of this technnique! No two pieces ever end up the same.

This is the back of the pieces.

Next colour: Rusty Hinge. This is the front side of the pieces. You can see I have not over-blended the colours.

Now the backs. More subtle.

From this point on, I treated the two pieces differently. Firstly, the brown one, using a layer of Brushed Corduroy distress ink. Here is the front.

And the back.

Going darker, I used Vintage Photo for the final layer on the brown box, seen on the left in the photo below. I also added a little (not so much) to the second box piece. You can see the difference – the second one does not have the Brushed Corduroy. These are the fronts.

And the backs.

With the brown one completed, I continued to work on the second one, which would have green accents. I used Forest Moss distress ink. Here is the front.

And the back.

In addition to blotting up the remaining ink, I also rubbed this a little, and got these nice streaks. This completes the green one.

I decided to add a few water spatters onto the backs of each piece. I dipped my fingers into my water pot and spattered the water droplets onto the surface and left them for a few minutes so that the water would soak into the ink, and then blotted them with kitchen paper, without rubbing, to remove the water, and with it, some of the ink. This is the result. This is the brown box.

This is the green box.

Here are the two boxes, assembled, together with their respective sachets. You can see that I have outlined each piece, inside and out, with a brown Faber Castell Pitt artist pen, as a finishing touch.

The brown box.

The green box.

This is the brown box, partially opened, showing the sachet inside.

Now fully opened.

The green box, partially opened, with sachet.

Fully opened.

The two completed boxes.

If I am not too tired later, I may do some more – not sure if I’ll be up to blogging about it till tomorrow, though! Keep watching this space.