Walnut Ink letters like a dream!

This tag was dampened, brushed with a concentrated solution of walnut ink, spritzed with water and sprinkled with crystals!

I am asked all the time how to mix up walnut ink! I have no fixed recipe.....

My favourite way to mix it, is to take the end of a Spatula and shovel out a small pile of ink crystals - maybe about 1/8 of a teaspoon into a container that is quite small. Sometimes I'll use a container that you get your salad dressing in at a restaurant (or if you're one of my USANA customers, use the scoops that come with the Nutritional Drink Mixes - they are the best!).

Then I use a dropper or pipette to add a few drops of water and stir the mixture up with the Spatula. It won't all dissolve right away, but that won't stop you from using it immediately. I really like to have a "stock" batch of really concentrated Walnut Ink handy, then I can dilute it to any strength I need. If your stock batch dries up, just add more water and stir!

It's handy to have Rinky Dinks with different strengths of Walnut Ink in each vial.

Walnut ink makes a great vintage background wash.
You can use it straight from your stock batch, or wet your first page and paint wet-in-wet.
You can paint your page with water and just sprinkle the crystals onto the page to see what happens.

Try mixing up a batch of concentrated Walnut ink and using your brush to paint it onto your paper. Try spritzing the surface with water just before the ink dries - you'll get very cool little spots of white!

You can colour Cotton Twill with Walnut Ink.

And of course, you can load it into your nib with a pipette or brush, and it letters like a dream in almost any concentration.

Have fun! Experiment!

© 2005 Suzanne Cannon    www.quietfiredesign.com