Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

The 4th of July is just around the corner, so I thought I'd try some inking techniques in patriotic colors. Last month, I tried a technique to create stripes of alcohol ink with a foam brush . It worked fairly well (it worked really well on smaller surfaces ), but was tough to apply in straight lines. I figured I'd drag the ink across the tile vertically to see if I could get a straighter line. I also wanted to see if I could use the Pinata white ink to keep the red and blue from turning into purple on the tile as I striped. Well, the white ink worked well, but striping vertically (I turned the tile after) did not seem to improve my wonky lines. So onto project #2. This time I wanted to test out using a piece of permanent vinyl (the kind you buy for Silhouette or Cricut cutting machines) as a resist for alcohol ink. I had some vinyl scraps leftover from some previous projects , so I drew a star on the paper backing and cut it out. It wasn't a perfect star, but I was mostl...

 Happy Summer Solstice! Check out all of the suncatcher crafts on the blog here: Suncatcher Collection

I've made a lot of necklaces out of washers over the years (check them out here: Washer Necklaces ). I bought a set of small metal stamps ages ago thinking that I would make all of these great washer necklaces and keychains with inspirational sayings on them. That never happened. The box of stamps sat in my craft stash for years. Well, this week I decided to finally bring them out and give them a go. So, I played around to get a feel for them and learned a few things. You need a very solid surface to stamp on. For me, this was a concrete floor (with those peel and stick vinyl tiles on it). I thought I'd put something soft under it to keep it from damaging the floor, but washers are pretty hard, the cushion meant there was no imprint. The washers and the stamps had a tendency to slip, so I cut a little square of grippy drawer liner stuff to put under the washer to protect the floor without too much cushion and keep it from sliding. After some test stamps, I got a feel for how h...

Ranger recently came out with a line of pearlescent inks. They have 4 new sets of inks, so when I managed to get back to a craft store, I used a coupon to buy a set and check them out. I bought set #2 (Sublime Green, Tranquil Blue, and Intrigue Magenta).  I laid out my craft mats and got out a ceramic tile to test the colors out. I started by applying a couple drops of the blue to the tile and then dripping rubbing alcohol over the top to see how the ink moves. It didn't. I dripped quite a bit of rubbing alcohol on the ink and used a hand held blower to try to move the ink. So the inks do not seem to thin with rubbing alcohol. They might work a bit if the rubbing alcohol was dripped before the ink, but as it was, I wiped the tile off and started again. This time I put quite a bit of ink on the tile and used the blower to move it around without thinning it. It moved nicely and the ink reveals a very subtle shimmer. I continued adding inks and blowing it around. Not surprisingly,...