Steps

  1. Fill your tray with water.
  2. Add your ink colors of choice to your palette. Feel free to mix your own colors here. 
  3. Place two circular pieces of “float paper” into your water, then use eye droppers to add your first drops of paint on top of the float paper. 
  4. Continue adding various colors of paint to the float paper and watch the ink spread across the surface of your water. 
  5. When you’re finished adding color, remove the float paper from your water. 
  6. Swirl the ink around with a wood skewer and pop any air bubbles on the surface with your eye dropper. 
  7. Place your copperplate paper onto the water, let it sit for about 30 seconds and remove. 
  8. Let your marbled paper dry over paper towels. The color will become more vibrant as it dries. 

Choosing your Paper

We did a ton of trial and error in finding the best way to make marbleized paper, and we want to share our results with you so that you don’t have to go through any of the frustrations that we had! Before landing on copperplate paper, we tried cardstock, watercolor paper, drawing paper and regular printer paper. Of those four options, printer paper worked the best. We found that the paper had to be uncoated for the ink to really adhere to it. With the other types of paper, the colors were much more muted than with copperplate paper. 

Suminagashi Technique

Suminagashi refers to the technique of using Japanese ink with “float paper.” Float paper allows the ink to remain at the surface of your water, so that the ink sticks right to the copperplate paper when you drop it in. Suminagashi ink is much thinner than craft paint, so it is perfect for sitting on the water’s surface. With craft paint, you would have to dilute it to a very specific consistency, which is frustrating to master. The ink kit that we used is from Blick. The kit only comes with primary colors, but we mixed some of the colors to create other shades. Be sure to mix the paints before dropping them into the water. 

Get Inspired!

Now that you know how to marble paper, you can use your pretty marbled designs for tons of different DIY projects! Marbled gift tags, journal covers and trays are just a few of the ideas we came up with, and you can look forward to tutorials for each in the next few days. Take a look at our YouTube page for more easy DIY tutorials, or browse our membership options to join our crafty community! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for daily updates, and always feel free to leave a comment with a project suggestion for something you would like to see in the future. Cheers! ~ Lia & Team

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 Tools

  • Washable Tray
  • Plastic Palette
  • Stir Stick/Skewer
  • Eye Droppers
  • Suminagashi Ink
  • Copperplate Paper