Alcohol Ink Pumpkin Gems


A while back I bought some enamel paint with the expressed interest of using it to back alcohol ink glass gems. I tried the white paint first with kind of mixed results (enamel paint backed glass gems). But I also bought black paint, and though I haven't gotten around to trying to back the gems with the enamel paint, I had a lightning bolt idea that it would be fun to use the paint under the alcohol ink. Since Halloween is coming up, I decided to try painting jack-o-lantern faces on the glass gems and then ink over them.


Enamel paint is supposed to stick a bit better when painting glass (which is tricky since the surface is so smooth). So I grabbed a tiny paint brush and painted little jack-o-lantern faces on the gems. They came out a bit sloppier than I would have liked. I used a little round brush, and I might have had some slightly better luck with a stiffer brush, but I did my best. I also grabbed some metallic acrylic paint from my stash and painted some pumpkin lines on some of the gems to see how that worked out.


I let my paint dry over night and then came back with all of my orange alcohol ink and an applicator and some felt.


I put a couple drops each of about 4 different shades of orange onto my felt and covered all of my gems with a base coat. Both the acrylic and enamel paints stayed put on the gems during inking.


I continued stamping until the ink started to get a bit tacky and then added some cranberry (a brick red), rust (an orange-y brown), and sunshine yellow to try and create some additional depth with all of the orange.


Then I used some more of my metallic paint and stamped it on some of the gems for added layers. It wasn't terribly noticeable with the alcohol ink, but if you wanted to try this project with just paint, it could be a possibility.


While my pumpkin gems were drying, I grabbed some glue-on bails and some green inks. I stamped the front and tops of the bails to turn them green.


Once the gems dried, I used some foil tape to finish the backs and make them a bit shimmery. I traced each gem with a toothpick (but you could use a pen on the paper backing too). I cut the circle out with a scissors.


Then I stuck the foil sticker onto the back of the gem and smoothed it out with my fingers.


The foil tape seals the backs and makes the gem slightly metallic and completely opaque.


After I put foil tapes on the backs of all the gems, I picked 6 of my favorites to turn into necklaces with green bails and two to put pin backs onto. I used E6000 to glue the bails and the pin backs onto the glass gems.


I let the E6000 glue dry for a couple hours before stringing the pendants onto some faux suede cording.


The jack-o-lantern faces are a bit rustic, but I was really pleased that the concept worked. I can paint designs on the glass gems, let it dry, and then stamp ink over top of it. This opens up the door for lots of different craft possibilities, and I got some cute Halloween jewelry in the process.

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