Best of the Blog: 2018


It's been a big year for the blog! We crossed the 1 million view mark and established a new domain name (www.sarahjanescraftblog.com). The blog also now has Instagram and Tumblr accounts. So it seems even more appropriate this year to reflect on some of the most popular and successful posts from the past year.

Top 5 Most Popular Posts


#1 The most popular (most visited) craft post this year by a large margin was my alcohol ink splatter gem project. My alcohol ink projects lead the charge this year, and this one was the big winner. I had a ton of fun painting and using canned air to create these beauties (as opposed to the usual stamping method). 


#2 Was a flamed alcohol ink project. I tried this new technique out on a glass plate fairly early in the year. I love how setting the alcohol ink on fire creates vivid color and mixes the ink in new and interesting ways. After I was done flaming this plate, I even sealed it with dishwasher safe mod podge so I could actually use the plate (since the ink and mod podge are on the back of the plate).


#3 This year's 3rd most popular post was more glass gems. This time, I set the ink on fire. I tried this technique out on a variety of surfaces, but the flat marble/glass gems are always really popular. They made for some great pins and necklaces!


#4 The 4th most popular post this year was foil backed alcohol ink plastic charms. Backing glass and plastic alcohol ink projects with foil tape makes the ink stand out and creates a really pretty metallic shimmer. I've started backing most of my glass gems with the stuff, so I figured why not try the plastic charms.


#5 The 5th most popular post from this past year was another flamed alcohol ink project. This time it was beautiful bright colors on square candle holders. I loved trying out new and different ways to apply the flamed ink technique last year, and I can't wait to try even more in the new year!

Honorable Mentions


Coming in at 7th in the post popularity contest, is our first honorable mention--rubber cement resist tile. I used rubber cement as a resist on a ceramic tile decorated with alcohol ink. It was an experiment that totally worked. I discovered there isn't an easy way to control the glue, but if you're not trying to control it, it creates a really neat effect!


Next up in my honorable mentions were two posts that were also just outside of the popularity contest. I created 2 Beginner's guides to alcohol ink stamping posts this year. They came in at 6th and 8th in the popularity contest, so I thought I'd feature them together. One covers the basics of stamping one color at a time on ceramic tiles and the other mixes colors and media. I get a lot of questions about alcohol ink stamping, so these posts were a ton of fun to make!


In case anyone has forgotten, I do make stuff that doesn't use alcohol ink from time to time. One of my favorite projects was galaxy spray paint. I made several projects this year where I tried my hand at using spray paint to make galaxy patterns. It was so much fun that I tried the method out on notebooks, boxes, candle holders, and even Easter eggs.
 

My next honorable mention was a washi tape project. I can't believe I hadn't ever thought of combining two of my favorite things: dollar store altar candles and washi tape. The results were some very cute candles!

Last up for honorable mentions was a series of posts I did late in the year (so not really in the running for popularity since they haven't been up very long) to test the three most popular types of blending solutions for alcohol ink. I compared rubbing alcohol, Ranger blending solution, and Pinata extender to each other using three different techniques: splatter, stamping, and swirl. In the process, I got more familiar with the different types of blenders and made some cute tiles, even coming up with a new technique in the end (on the swirl project I discovered while cleaning up that napkins created a unique texture in alcohol ink).


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