Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

This week's post has been interrupted by a nasty cold, while I'm getting better, check out a collection of Valentine's Day craft project s to improve your winter spirits.

Last week I tried alcohol ink on a surface I hadn't tried before-- a textured bowl . This week, I'm trying another new surface--a mirror. At Dollar Tree, they sell these little mirrored candle plates, so I picked one up to try as an experiment. I started out by dripping some red ( watermelon ) and orange ( sunset orange ) onto the mirror. Then I added a drop of rubbing alcohol to help thin the ink out. Then I used a can of electronic duster air  to spread the ink out. I used a plastic container lid as a shield to blow the ink towards so it wouldn't get all over my table. When I was done, I ended up with something that looked like the one above. If looks a little blurry from the reflection of the mirror. I wasn't pleased with my first try, so I tried it again and again and again. I think I wiped it off with a paper towel and rubbing alcohol about 5 times. This one (above) was my best--sadly, I kept adding ink after this photo was taken, a...

I was at Dollar Tree the other day, and I was looking for things to use alcohol ink on that I hadn't yet. It's a strange sort of affliction: "Could I put alcohol ink on that?" "What about that?" I was looking for a plain glass plate as I haven't inked any plates yet, but they didn't have any, but they did have this pretty pressed bowl . I haven't done any bowls yet, and I certainly haven't inked anything that had this much texture, so I figured it was worth a dollar for the experiment. I grabbed some inks , my craft mat , my applicator ( I made my own ) and some felt. I picked twilight purple , sailboat blue , and pool to start. I dripped the colors onto my felt (three or four drops of each color to start). I made a first pass with those colors and wasn't getting too much coverage. I had to stamp a lot and press fairly hard to get it onto all of the raised areas of the bowl's design. I kept adding dro...

It's been a pretty cold and dreary start to 2017, but I did manage to make a project with some of the cardstock I marbled with spray paint ages ago. It was so much fun to make, but I always forget I have it to make projects with. Well, since I'm trying to get better at using my Silhouette for projects, I thought this was a perfect excuse to use some of that cardstock to make some bookmarks. So I used one of the free designs that Silhouette gives you--a tag design. I stretched it out so it was about six inches long and grabbed a couple other free designs to cut out of the bottom of the tag.  They cut out very easily. I was worried since the cardstock is a bit thick and just a smidge wobbly from the water and paint. I just dialed the blade up one notch from the recommended cardstock setting to compensate for the paint, and it worked perfectly. You could easily cut out the bookmark shape with ascissors and cut out a design with a paper punch  if you don't hav...

Happy New Year! To celebrate 2017, I thought we'd take a look back at last year's most popular posts (and a few of my favorites). 1. This year's most popular post, by far, was the one where I used my Cuttlebug to emboss aluminum foil . I also used some dies to cut out some shapes (as seen in the photo above). I guess this one was popular because it's such an easy project. It's always fun to take something (like aluminum foil) that we have around the house and make something really cool with it. 2. My second most popular post was the one where I tested 90% vs. 70% rubbing alcohol as blending solutions with alcohol inks. Though I think the post's popularity is due to the cool splatter tile I made with the rubbing alcohol and an eye dropper. 3. This year's 3rd most popular post was a compilation post of all of my alcohol ink glass gem tutorials. These glass gems continue to be one of my most popular projects. They are so much fun to m...