Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

I've made homemade pin dishes before for the blog. The first time I made them , the post got picked up by some listicle websites and got extra traffic from all over the internet. So I revisited the craft  a while back when I thought I found some good magnets online, since the ones from the craft store were kind of pricey. Unfortunately, those magnets were a bit small, and not strong enough. So, here I am today with a stack of saucers from an orphan set of teacups that my Grandma had in her china cabinet that no one wanted and some new magnets from Amazon. There's only one thing to do--make some more pin dishes! After my last batch of pin dishes suffered from weak magnets, I set about finding some larger ones to use on the back of my next set of pin dishes. I ordered these 20 mm (about 3/4 of inch) magnets on Amazon hoping that the larger size meant they would be stronger magnets. After they arrived, I set about testing them on my plates. Sometimes the plates will...

One of the most common questions I receive about alcohol ink is: "How do I seal that" or "What should I seal that with?" Even when I see other inkers on Instagram or Pinterest, I often have the same question, "I wonder what they sealed that with?" Sealing glass alcohol ink projects is even trickier since the end product needs to remain glossy and translucent. I've often just skipped sealing the craft projects because I was worried the sealant would either ruin the ink or the glossy finish. But if you want your alcohol ink projects to last, it's usually a good idea to seal them. So, I dug out all of my sealants (well, I do have a couple more versions of regular spreadable mod podge, but I picked the one I thought would work the best and most easily on glass). I ended up with 8 different products. I'm sure there are lots more similar products available out there, but these 8 are definitely a good start. Since I wanted to test the resu...

I've had this empty candle jar floating around in my craft stash for a while. It's shape made it a hard one to figure out a craft for. Since alcohol ink works almost as well on curved surfaces as it does on flat, it seemed like a good fit. So, I decided to do something else I had been thinking about for a while, painting a vase or jar with white paint after I inked it. I tried it out on some glass gems and it mostly worked, so I knew it had potential. I started out with a light colored ink dripped all the way around the candle jar as a base color. I decided to go with Sunshine Yellow . I swirled it around the jar and then lit it on fire with a long lighter. I don't have any pictures of the flaming process on this project because the flame went poof very quickly because of the shape of the jar. If you try this method out, be sure to point the opening of the jar away from you as you light the ink on fire (also, light smaller amounts of ink at a time and ke...

With the new school year starting, it's time to take a moment to share the blog's collection of Fall inspired crafts: Fall Craft Collection

After last week's success with using the plastic wrap application method on glass gems , I decided it would be fun to try it on metal washers. Washer necklaces are my second most popular post on the blog, so it only seemed appropriate to give them the plastic wrap treatment too. I laid out a sheet of crumpled plastic wrap on my craft mat and selected some washers and some coordinating colors of ink so they wouldn't turn too brown. I ended up selecting some blues and greens and then some purple as a pop of color. I squirted the ink onto the plastic wrap until I had good coverage. Then I plopped my washers down onto the ink making sure they had good contact. Then I wrapped the edges over the top to secure them for drying. I set them aside for a day to dry. When I came back to them, the dried ink was a bit darker. I was optimistic since the last couple attempts at this method have been pretty successful. So I peeled my first washer off o...