What Is Smooch?

(Grab your coffee, this is another llloooooooonnnng post, but well worth the read!!)
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Welcome to another edition of Deneen's Behind The Scene. (Lol, I just made that up, sounds good though). Last time we looked at Spellbinders Impressabilities - How to get a great impression, and ways to use them. You can find Part 1 HERE, and Part 2 HERE. This time I am going to take a look at Smooch.
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Like me, you may have wondered what Smooch is. Well, I hope to clear that up for you today!! Sharon, from The Scrapbook Cottage, sent me home with some bottles of Smooch to play with. As I looked on the Net for ideas, I found that there really wasn't much out there. I thought, "If I can't find much about Smooch, then others aren't either...how many bottles of Smooch are stashed away in the back of people's drawers being unused?" I must admit, I was feeling a little ho-hum about them too. "It's just another way to embellish projects," I thought. Well, let me tell you, once I got playing with them, the ideas kept coming of where I could use it. So let's dig in and I hope I can inspire you to dust off your bottles of Smooch!! (and no, I am not being paid to advertise Smooch, lol, I just hate buying products that end up not being used because I was disappointed with it when I tried it at home)
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Here were the colours I worked with, even the names are yummy sounding. Luscious Lime, Grape Soda, Kiwi, Nautical Navy, Pool, Moonlight and Taffy.

Smooch is made by Clearsnap, and comes in these cute bottles. Although it looks like nail polish, it isn't. It's a pearlescent ink, but works like acrylic paint. The tip is very stiff...you can get into the smallest corners...but you can also use it like a brush. (I don't have a picture of it, but I'll add it to the bottom of the post later.)

One of the ways to use smooch is to highlight embossing. Here, I used the same colours (Taffy, Grape Soda, Luscious Lime, Pool, Moonlight) of Smooch on 2 different colours of cardstock...and the looks are very different.

By tilting the paper slightly, you can see how pearlescent Smooch is.

Wouldn't it look great for snowflakes? I grabbed my snowflake embossing folder and tried it.

I started to find that each Smooch colour has it's own pearlescent qualities. Although Nautical Navy doesn't 'shine' as well here, as you read further on, you'll see where it does.

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Oooooo, then I grabbed my Christmas tree folder to highlight some elements.

In real life you don't have to tilt the pieces up that much, but I'm not a photographer, so it's very difficult to capture the shine of Smooch.

I love that you can use both light and dark cardstock. Here, I learned that if you take short strokes, you'll get a smoother, less blotchy looking image. Here I used long strokes, thinking I could paint it, that's why he looks blotchy.

I couldn't capture the 'shine' as well, but the snowman is very pearlescent.

(Sorry about my fingers in the shot, but if I cropped it any closer, it got a little blurry and didn't look as nice:)

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Like I said earlier, you can treat Smooch like acrylic paint. Another way to use Smooch is by colouring/painting your stamp, I then spritzed it lightly with water and stamped it. I spritzed it lightly with water again, and stamped and even one more time. It gives it a watercoloured effect.

Here I 'painted' my stamp, huffed on it (huffed=breathing on it like when you warm your cold hands up), then stamped it, huffed on it again, and stamped it once more.

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Oops, I just noticed I took the picture upside down. The top 2 are huffed, the bottom 2 are spritzed with water. You can click on the photo to see it closer.

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Again, I discovered that different stamps worked 'nicer' with the watercolouring technique. Look at how great it worked with this stamp.

The stamped images do have some pearlescent-ness to them, but it's a different look than when you add it directly to the image. The Smooch appears to dry on your stamp, but comes off the stamp very easy when I cleaned it on my Scrubber.

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Another way to use Smooch is to colour your flowers! Here I tried out different colours to see how they looked. It was very quick and easy to colour, and dries almost immediately, so I could hold the coloured petals while finishing the uncoloured ones.

This is where I found the Nautical Navy amazing!! Can you image flowers coloured with Nautical Navy for wedding invitations etc.? Very nice.

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Another way to use Smooch is to colour your images with it. Here I embossed the image with Silver Pearl, and then coloured in the image (I left the middle image plain so you can see what the image looks like before colouring.) It amazing on dark cardstock!! I could even colour the embossing...see the stems of the hanging flower...and it doesn't come off.

Here I used different coloured cardstock, again, you get a different effect.

I couldn't quite capture the shine...Grape Soda, and Taffy don't seem to shine as much in this technique.

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Here I coloured in images that I stamped with ink. Some of the Smooch colours are more opaque than others (opaque=not transparent, a solid colour) For instance, Kiwi I coloured over the inked lines, and could still see the line. Moonlight was a little more opaque, it didn't allow the inked lines to show through as much.

I almost forgot to mention, I made the tiny dots on the purple flower with the tip of the Nautical Navy applicator.

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Another way to use Smooch is as a highlight. The top flower I coloured with Copics, and then highlighted the dark purple areas with Grape Soda. The bottom flower I coloured with Smooch, and highlighted the left flower with Nautical Navy, and didn't highlight the right flower to show you the difference.

It's difficult to capture the pearlescent-ness on film.

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Excuse the images, lol, these were just practice colourings I pulled out of my stash. But they work great for highlighting with Smooch. The polkadots on the umbrella were red, I coloured them with Smooch. Again, you can see how different Smooch colours vary in how opaque they are. I added Smooch to her collar, and boots, and made a puddle from Nautical Navy.

See it shine!!

Again this is just a practice image, but I added raindrops with Smooch, and a puddle! Same image, but a totally different look!!! How exciting is this Smooch now!?! I found way more possibilities for Smooch than I initially thought there would be.

All together now.......Wow, no way!! Isn't that the neatest thing you've seen? At least today, lol!

Well, I'm at the end of what I have to show you, but at the beginning of many more possibilities with Smooch. I hope I've opened that drawer for you, and all you have to do is grab that dusty Smooch bottle, open it, and go play!!

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This is what I love about blogging, being able to share what I have learned with all of you!! I've done the work so that you can go play:)

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I'll try and get those pictures of the applicator loaded today.

Enjoy, and be sure to post and show me and others how you have used Smooch!!! And let me know if there is a product/technique that you have always wondered about. I may feature it in an upcoming episode!!

Deneen

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Ack, I almost forgot, some of the other ways to use Smooch (which I don't have photos of):

*Colouring on metal embellishments (again, some colours colour nicer than others)

*Colour on brads...coloured and metal. Add Nautical Navy to a big red brad...you have a ladybug:)

It takes longer to dry on metal...I left them at The Scrapbook Cottage overnight...I have yet to go check on them.

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Cheers!

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Edited to add photos:

Here is the Smooch brush.