Stamping Alcohol Ink on Ridged Surfaces


The last time I was at Dollar Tree, I saw this cute little jar with a lid and thought,"Could I ink that?" If you've been following Sarah Jane's Craft Blog for any amount of time, you know that's a common question I ask at Dollar Tree. :) So I thought, "Maybe, I could." I actually like the "maybe" answer the best because that means I get to try something new. So I bought the little jar, and it sat on my craft supply shelf for months (yes, it's been months since I've been to Dollar Tree--time for another trip!) before I finally decided to try to tackle it.


I brought out my regular inking supplies (craft mat, alcohol ink, applicator and felt), but I also grabbed some makeup sponges and a few cotton rounds.


I knew that if I tried stamping the ink onto the jar with the regular wooden applicator, the ink would just sit on the top edges of the ridges. It would be very stripey--which probably wouldn't be a bad look either, but I wanted to try to get more coverage. I brought out all of my blue, aqua, teal type colors so they would compliment each other and dripped one of the turquoise inks onto the makeup sponge. Then I stamped the jar, but most of the ink was sucked into the sponge. It left light circles across the jar. Not quite the better coverage I was looking for. (Though, I'll try to keep it in mind if I ever have a strong desire for alcohol ink polka-dots.)


Next, I tried the cotton rounds. I was a bit worried when I dripped the ink on and it immediately spread out, but after a few quick passes across the jar, I could tell it was working better. I stamped the jar as much as possible with the first few drops of ink and then added a few more drops and made another pass.


I was able to get pretty good coverage with six drops of ink. It didn't get into all of the indents from the ridges, but it did work great to get ink on the entire curved surface of the ridge.


The ink did seep through the cotton round a bit--but less than I expected (back of cotton round pictured above). So you may want to use gloves for this method if you don't like getting it on your hands.


I didn't take any pictures of my last step, but I had the applicator out, so I went ahead and added some darker blues and some brighter greens onto the regular felt applicator to go around the jar and add a bit more dimension to the color. I opted not to do any wild contrasting colors because I wanted the jar's ridged pattern to stand out and not have to compete with the ink too much.  So, success! I inked the ridged jar and learned a new method for applying ink to curved and ridged surfaces.

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