2020 Grinch Ornaments made with Alcohol Ink and Vinyl Decals

A couple years ago, I made an ornament using my Silhouette cutting machine and an alcohol inked plastic ornament. Over the years, I've made many versions of inked globe ornaments, so I wanted to try something a little different this year. It's been a memorable year, so I thought I'd make a commemorative ornament.

I had some plastic globe ornaments in my craft stash. I figured these flatter ornaments would be easier to apply decals to, so I got out some green alcohol ink and a can of air and got to work. I took off the metal hangers on the top of the ornaments and started squirting ink into the interiors of the ornaments.

I started out by coating the ornaments with a lighter shade of green as a base. I used 4-5 drops of Limeade ink and some swirling around with the air can to coat the insides of the ornaments.

Next I dripped a couple drops of Botanical ink into each ornament and blew it around with the canned air until it was dry.

Lastly, I used a few drops of Bottle ink to create some contrast. I accidentally squirted much more than a couple drops into one of the ornaments, so I squirted some rubbing alcohol into the ornament and swirled it around. Then I turned it over and let it drip out onto a napkin. Then I added some of the lighter green back into it until it looked the way I wanted it to. It was still a bit darker than the others, but it was salvageable.

While the ink was drying, I used my Silhouette to cut out some designs. I cut out a Grinch face, a Grinch hand holding an ornament, and some text that said "2020 stink, stank, stunk." I found the face and hand through a quick google search and used a font called Grinched to make the text.

After the designs were cut and weeded (excess vinyl removed), I cut them into their separate designs and cut out some transfer paper tape for the designs with multiple components.

I centered my Grinch face on the paper tape and burnished (rubbed) the vinyl design so it would stick to the tape.

Then I applied the decal to the ornament from the center out. I was surprised that even these flattened globes had quite a bit of curve to them, so some of the vinyl wrinkled a bit.

I rubbed the design down and carefully peeled back the transfer tape to reveal the vinyl decal.

On the next ornament, I made some cuts in the transfer tape to eliminate some of the wrinkling. It worked perfectly.

On the back side, I repeated the process with my other decals. The hand and ornament decal was all one piece, so I applied it without transfer tape. Then I lined the text up next to it with the transfer tape and burnished it onto the ornament. I cut the transfer tape between each line of text so it wouldn't wrinkle (sorry I didn't take a picture of that application).

I repeated the decal process on all four ornaments, and aside of some difficulties getting the decals on straight, the ornaments turned out positively Grinchy!