Welcome back to the craft room and today’s Flashback Friday Colored Pencils and Baby Oil post. Today’s Flashback Friday takes us all the way back to my early experiments with a fun coloring technique—using colored pencils with baby oil. One thing about me: I love trying new crafting techniques. When I first saw someone (probably Gina K!) blending colored pencils with Odorless Mineral Spirits (OMS), I was instantly intrigued. But living in a small town means certain supplies aren’t always easy to find. So when I heard there were alternatives, I just had to give them a try!
Colored Pencils and Baby Oil
There’s been a lot of buzz over the years about blending regular colored pencils with OMS, but some crafters also recommend baby oil or even Goo Gone as substitutes. So naturally, I had to test them out for myself. I grabbed my son’s Rose Art pencils, a Q-tip, and both baby oil and Goo Gone—and let the experimenting begin!
Spoiler alert: my first attempt didn’t go so well. I definitely overdid it with the baby oil, and the residue kept spreading… even days later. Not ideal.
With a little advice from fellow crafters, I decided to upgrade my tools. I ordered some artist stumps from Taiwan and picked up a set of artist-grade colored pencils. What a difference! The Koh-I-Noor woodless colored pencils, in particular, are a joy to work with—the color glides onto the paper so smoothly. I can’t recommend them enough!
For the examples shown below, I used Georgia Pacific cardstock (a budget-friendly option available at your local Wally World). I also embossed my stamped images first, rather than using something like StazOn. Both images were colored with roughly the same amount of pigment in the same areas, so you can really see how the materials and blending techniques make a difference.
Baby Oil vs Goo Gone
To blend, dip just the very tip of your artist stump into your product of choice—whether it’s baby oil, Goo Gone, or eventually OMS—and use a gentle swirling motion to move the color around the image. A little goes a long way! Especially with baby oil—if you use too much, the oily residue will keep spreading forever. (Ask me how I know!)
I definitely still need more practice with this technique, but so far, I find that baby oil spreads more easily than Goo Gone. Either way, it’s such a fun and effective method for getting smooth, vibrant color onto stamped images for cards. One day, I’d love to try true OMS, since I’ve heard it performs even better than both of the options I used here.
Here’s a card I made using the Koh-I-Noor pencils and baby oil for blending. To finish it off, I inked around the edges with Creamy Brown ColorBox fluid chalk ink.
Thank you so much for joining me for today’s Flashback Friday Colored Pencils and Baby Oil post. For years, I was perfectly happy using baby oil for this coloring technique. In fact, it was only about two years ago that I finally got my hands on a bottle of Gamsol Odorless Mineral Spirits—and I haven’t looked back since! While the baby oil did a fantastic job, the Gamsol blends even more smoothly and gives a more polished finish. Have you ever tried this technique before? I’d love to know what blending product you used—baby oil, Goo Gone, Gamsol, or something else entirely! Drop a comment and let’s compare notes.
Want to see more colored pencil inspiration? Click here to explore my other colored pencil projects and get even more ideas for your next card.
PIN THIS POST FOR LATER!
