Hello, all. I have used phone book pages and they worked fine. No problems with ink smudges. The size did of the phone book did limit the size of my squares. I also used some cheeeeeep muslin that was given to me with good intentions but was of such poor quality that I could read the phone book pages through the muslin. Tee-Hee! I got the muslin out of my way and honored the intention of the one who made the donation. One or the other? Both worked just fine for me.