Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

A few years ago, I bought some small white bowls at Big Lots. They were a lovely satin finish that allowed ink to run, but not slide across the surface. I've used these bowls for several projects, and I found one lonely bowl in my craft stash just waiting for decoration. So, I thought I'd try out a simple project with alcohol ink that would be good for beginners. I chose a few shades of alcohol ink that wouldn't turn brown if mixed together (on the same side of the color wheel ), I ended up adding a fourth later on. I used all Ranger inks for this project: Mojito (green), Cobalt (blue), Boysenberry (purple), and Turquois (aqua). Then I flipped over my bowl and put it on top of a folded over paper towel (that's on top of a craft mat to keep it from bleeding on to my table). Then I squeezed the Mojito green ink onto the bottom of the bowl, starting at the base, and let it drip down to the paper towel. You don't need too much ink to get there. If your bowl is very...

Last year, I used a simple method to ink the back of some dominoes with stripes . It worked so well that I wanted to try it out on a larger surface, so I dug out some ceramic tiles and my inks and got to work. I laid down a craft mat and selected some alcohol inks in shades of green and blue ( Cobalt , Sailboat , Turquoise , Clover , Botanical ) . I also pulled out a couple of foam paint brushes . I then dripped ink in a line on the beveled edge of the brush starting with a vertical line of the darkest blue and working my way toward green. I filled the entire brush tip with stripes of ink. The brush just looks wet on the end, but it was striped with ink. I set the paint brush on the tile and drug it across the top. The ink started to blend immediately. I filled the rest of the tile with my horizontal stripes. I might have had an easier time keeping the lines straight if I was pulling the ink towards myself in vertical stripes, but I didn't realize this until after I was done. The ...

Q. What exactly is alcohol ink?  It's an alcohol based liquid ink similar to what's used in permanent markers (like Sharpies) and art pens (like Copics). Most Alcohol ink comes in small bottles with nozzles that can be used to drip the ink onto surfaces. Q. Where can I buy alcohol ink? Craft stores, art supply stores, and Amazon. Most craft stores carry some variety of alcohol ink these days. Michael's and JoAnne's carry Tim Holt's Ranger Alcohol Inks . Michael's carries Copic refills (which are just refills for the Copic markers, but the inks are pretty much just alcohol inks and come in a zillion colors--though they recently cut the size of the refills in half and started charging more because alcohol ink artists were using them). JoAnn's is also carrying Brea Rease inks (which I haven't had a chance to try, but I have heard that they are good). Your local art supply store may also have alcohol inks (Dick Blick does). There are also tons of different...

I started out this alcohol ink project trying to have both stamped inking and blown inking in the same project. It didn't work out exactly how I had planned, but it was really fun to compare the two techniques. This post is image heavy as it walks you through every color combination so you can see how the colors mix and react to the two techniques. You'll need: Alcohol Ink (I used 6 colors of Ranger Ink from two sets for this project: Summit View and Dockside Picnic) Ceramic Tiles A work surface (like a craft mat ) painters tape alcohol ink applicator and felt canned air The first thing I did was cut a thin strip of painters tape and ran it diagonally across two 4 inch ceramic tiles. I decided to do the stamping side of my tile first. I started with Purple Twilight (from the Summit View Set) I dripped a bunch of tiny dots onto my felt to stamp my tiles. The drips were pretty small, and didn't get too much ink onto the felt, so s...

This is part two in my Beginner's Guide to stamping with alcohol inks. If you missed part one, check it out here: Beginner's Guide to Alcohol Ink Stamping: Basics on Ceramic Tile . In part two we'll take a look at some other surfaces you can stamp alcohol ink on and learn a bit about stamping with multiple colors. If you're not sure what these alcohol ink things even are, check out this post: Getting Started with Alcohol Inks . To get started stamping, you'll need: Alcohol inks An applicator and felt  (homemade is fine--last week's post discusses these in more detail) Parchment paper or a craft mat to keep your work surface clean Rubbing alcohol for clean up Stuff to stamp (we'll go through several options, but any glossy flat surface will work to stamp) My first group of examples to stamp is plastics. In the past, I've stamped milk jug plastic , dominoes , buttons , switch plates , plastic Easter eggs , transparency film , sh...