Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

After last week's domino project , I had an urge to work with dominoes again. I decided to try out the plastic wrap application method to see if it would work on dominoes. So I set out a craft mat and a sheet of plastic wrap and got out my inks . I selected a veritable rainbow of alcohol inks and dripped them all over my sheet of plastic wrap. When the plastic wrap was filled with ink, I dropped my dominoes onto the ink and wrapped the edges of the plastic around the dominoes. When I do this again, I'll try to make sure to have enough inked plastic to wrap around all of the dominoes. Some of my dominoes were inked on the backsides and some weren't. I let them dry for several days before unwrapping them, but they're usually dry after being left for 12-24 hours (depending on humidity levels and how much ink was used and how porous the surface is, etc...).  Between the rainbow of colors and the ink getting a bit smooshed when I moved my pack of dominoes off to the side o...

I've had an application technique for alcohol ink floating around in my head for awhile. I've seen ink applicated in rainbows with foam brushes and makeup sponges, but I always thought it wouldn't look as pretty when I tried it myself. I've used foam brushes to apply ink to the edges of tiles and in other areas where I want a solid color, but I hadn't tried striping the ink. So I got out some dominoes and a foam brush so I could test this striped application method. I chose some colors that I thought would look nice next to each other. I added an orange when I had space for more ink on my foam brush. I used the tip of the inks to draw a line of ink on the foam brush and just stacked the lines of ink on top of each other. I couldn't really see the ink (except that hot pink raspberry color) on the foam brush, but I could tell where it was wet. I took a picture of the inks before I painted them on the dominoes so I could remember what colors I used: Sunset Orange ,...

If you've been following the blog, you know that I snagged an incomplete domino set over Christmas break and I've been putting them to good use. Today's project used a different technique than my last domino pendants ( which used stamping ). This time I brought out the canned air and dripped my alcohol ink on to create a marbled effect. Unfortunately this tutorial needs to start with a little cautionary tale. I started these thinking they'd be a quick easy project, but they took longer than I expected, and I ran into some snags along the way. I began the way I do with all of my ink projects, I laid out the craft mat and selected my inks. I dripped the ink onto the dominos and used some canned air to blow the ink around, but I soon realized that the ink was pooling under the domino, and even with the canned air (spraying it all over), the ink was tacky and not drying quickly. So I ended up with lots of smeared ink and a craft mat that looked like a colorfu...

A little recap of this week's and last week's posts in collage form. Check out the tutorial for part one here and part 2 here .

If you read last week's post  where I played around with stamping alcohol ink on some dominoes and were wondering what the heck I was going to do with them--today's your lucky day! I sealed the dominoes with some clear acrylic sealer  so that the ink wouldn't smudge, scratch, or have any issues with bleeding when stamped. Last Thursday it was warm...like almost 50 degrees, which is unseasonable for January. Today's high was 2 degrees, so I'm glad I got the dominoes sealed when I did. Spray a very light coat at least a foot away from the dominoes at first and then wait like 30 seconds before giving them a good spray to avoid any stippling. Then flip them over and repeat.   After the sealer had dried, I grabbed my embossing stuff ( heat gun , embossing powder , VersaMark ink pad , and a random assortment of stamps). I picked this scroll pattern stamp and stuck it to a stamp block. After tapping the clear "ink" from the VersaMark sta...

Over Christmas I managed to snag an big set (double twelves) of dominoes. They were well used and missing two of their numbers, so they were perfect to craft with. They seemed like perfect candidates for alcohol ink since they are a smooth non porous surface. I grabbed my craft mat , inks , applicator , and some rubbing alcohol. My first step was to make sure they were clean of dirt and oil from being handled. I used a paper towel and rubbing alcohol to clean each domino. After inking my first domino, I set up two applicators with two different sets of colors dripped on them so that I could dye two dominoes at once. This worked out pretty well since you need to dye a side, let it dry for a minute, and then flip to another side. I started on the backs so that the fronts wouldn't be marred or full of fingerprints. The only downside is that the colors are more separate when you start and begin to mix a bit on the felt by the time you stamp the front of your domino...