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Showing posts from April, 2019

Dishwasher Pod Mini Trash Can (or Storage Canister) with Duct Tape

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I always enjoy a good duct tape project . Duct tape is durable and bright and fun to play with, but trying to get it to look professional can be a bit of a pain. A few years ago, I covered a  Cascade pod canister  with duct tape to create a little storage canister. After much trial and error, I figured out how best to approach the project, which saved me a ton of time when I raided my stash of recyclables for a new project. I had two dishwasher pod canisters in my saved for crafts recyclables box, so I dug out some fun new duct tape that I hadn't gotten a chance to use yet and got ready to work. I highly recommend using a cutting mat and a rotary cutter when working with duct tape, you can measure and uses scissors, but it will be much easier with a rotary cutter. The tape sticks to even the non-stick scissor blades, but doesn't seem to stick to the rotary cutter (probably because you're only cutting it on the non-sticky side). It's also a lot easier to ke

Alcohol Ink Galaxy Tile

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Months ago, I cut a bunch of shapes out of some dark blue vinyl with my Silhouette cutting machine. I made some monograms for our electric toothbrushes and some meeple coasters , but I still had a Tardis (Dr. Who's time machine) cut out and waiting for a project, so I decided to put it on a ceramic tile and try to do some galaxy alcohol ink. I have played around with galaxy spray paint  and had a lot of fun, but I hadn't tried to make space-y nebula-y alcohol ink patterns. So I got out my craft mats , alcohol inks, a six inch ceramic tile, my Tardis vinyl decal, and some canned air . I weeded (peeled the excess vinyl off) my decal and set it aside and located my space-y colors ( pitch black , indigo , purple twilight , a couple other shades of blue and some silver and gold) . I started with the metallic inks in the center of the tile so they would show behind the vinyl decal. I squirted some ink onto the tile and thinned it a bit with rubbing alcoho

Alcohol Ink Splashed Mugs

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I've been itching to ink some white ceramic stuff that wasn't tiles for a very long time, so when I came across these plain white mugs at Big Lots, I picked them up knowing that I was going to ink them. The mugs were a fairly matte finished white. I pealed the price stickers off and gave them a quick washing. I wanted to keep the ink fairly minimal and let it flow onto the mug in stripes just along the bottom. I picked Turquoise ink from Ranger and dripped it onto the mugs. I kept the mugs horizontal while I was inking so the ink would drip around the mug. If it wasn't flowing as much as I wanted, I used a very small paint brush dipped in rubbing alcohol to get the ink flowing a bit more. Once I had a few stripes with some interesting blobs, I set it aside to dry and repeated it with the other mug. I had a few stray ink trails that I had to clean up with a paper towel soaked in rubbing alcohol, but otherwise, it was pretty simple. To break up the

Splatter Dripped Alcohol Ink Easter Eggs

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This isn't the first time I've used alcohol ink to decorate plastic Easter eggs ...and I assure you, it won't be the last. It's a ton of fun. But before I talk about the splatter eggs (shown above), I need to share a story about a craft experiment that fizzled. I first set out to test a weird idea I had about dipping plastic Easter eggs in the alcohol ink much like you'd dip a regular egg in egg dye. I figured it could be a cool looking project, and I love testing out new application methods. So I cut the top off of a plastic solo-type cup (I think this one was Hefty brand, so you know, whatever you've got). Then I squirted some rubbing alcohol in the cup followed by 4 or 5 drips of the most saturated alcohol ink color I had ( indigo ) to see if it even sort of worked. I dropped the plastic eggs in the ink and swirled them around and some ink transferred. That was good enough for me. So I went full steam ahead with a Pink-y red made with Pinat

Alcohol Ink on Iridescent Plastic Easter Eggs

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A few weeks ago, I went to the Goodwill Outlet and picked up a cart full of stuff. One of the things I picked up was a package of large (like about 4 inches tall) iridescent plastic Easter Eggs. They were pretty and light (it's pay by weight at the Goodwill Outlet), so I tossed them in the cart. After getting home and taking a closer look at them, I knew I wanted to ink them. Since Easter eggs are usually used to hide treats, these don't do a very good job of that. Some ink would make them more colorful and perhaps hide contents. I had used alcohol ink on plastic Easter eggs in the past (both stamped and blown ), so I knew inking would work, but I had never worked with these iridescent eggs before. After looking at the eggs, I decided that inking the inside would be a better choice. The shimmery coating was on the outside of the eggs and if I inked over it, it would probably be less shimmery. I started by opening the eggs up and giving them a color