Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

After sharing the  washer jewelry projects  collection last week, I had an idea I had to try. I've inked on spray paint a few times before, but I've never started washer necklaces on spray paint. I figured it would make the ink pop and provide a contrast if I let it peek through the ink. Since this was a bit of an experiment, I went through my stash of washers and picked out some dinged ones, and then I used a piece of sandpaper to scuff them up to get the spray paint to stick better. I used an all-purpose spray paint and gave them a couple of quick coats and let it dry overnight. The next day, I put down a silicone craft mat and grabbed my inks. I also got out my rubbing alcohol, a couple of paintbrushes, and a hand bulb blower . Since this was a new way to ink washers, I started inking without taking pictures. I covered the whole washer in purple ink and then came back with more ink and rubbing alcohol to get the ink to move around and create patterns. Unfortunately, the...

Ages ago I bought some Yupo. Yupo is plasticized paper that's used for mixed media art--especially media that thrives on glossy surfaces like alcohol ink. There are other similar products now, like Nara , and other Alcohol ink "papers."  But it's not cheap, so I haven't used it for much. But I thought it would work perfectly for making necklaces with the bezels and cabochons that I have since it would use so little of the paper to make them. So to start with, I needed to get some ink onto some Yupo. I decided to use my T-Rex ink for this project since the colors are lovely, and I'm trying to get more use out of them. So I got out a craft mat , a can of air , some rubbing alcohol and a hand bulb. I also grabbed a paint brush in case I wanted to make some fine details. I'm just using a 5 x 7 sheet of Yupo, and it should be plenty of paper for this project. I started with a magent-y purple. I dripped some ink on the paper and then used a bunch of rubbing ...

After last week's post revisiting all of the different ways I have decorated glass gems , I was inspired to make some more. Most of my gems are decorated with multiple colors, so I thought a new spin could be a more monochromatic palette. I found that when I was making washer necklaces , I was much more likely to wear them if I stuck with one or two colors. It was so much easier to coordinate them to the clothes I was wearing. So I decided to bring out a bunch of different purple inks (I was using Ranger , Pinata , and Pixiss inks). I started by dripping some Ranger Vineyard onto a felt applicator and stamping it across the backs of the glass gems to get a base color. You can get good results just from a stamper, but with all one color, the purples would have run together a bit and not been very interesting to look at. So I started dripping, blowing (with a hand bulb ), and dabbing ink onto the glass gems. I found out rather quickly that working on a black silicone mat caused s...

Over the last few weeks, I've been putting the T-Rex alcohol inks through their paces. I started out with a test of the warm and cool tone sets and continued to use the sets to try out some standard alcohol ink methods ( plastic wrap , flaming , etc...). They've been a pleasure to work with, and though you do have to watch out for the inks getting dark because the colors are so nicely saturated, they are usually in line with the other quality inks ( Ranger , Pinata ) that I've worked with. So, I decided I would try them out with a classic craft blog project-- Washer Necklaces . This would also give me the opportunity to try sealing the necklaces with UV Resin (which has been on my to do list ever since I first tried the stuff ). So I got out a few large washers (the kind you get from the hardware store) and a collection of blue T-Rex inks, some paint brushes, rubbing alcohol, and a small pan for mixing/thinning ink. I also used a lighter to help move and set the ink. The ...