Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

A while back I picked up some small white bowls from Big Lots ( these look similar ) with a nice satin finish. I already inked one bowl using the flame method , but I still have a few bowls left, so I decided to give one the plastic wrap treatment. I got out my craft mat and some alcohol inks . Then I cleaned my bowl with rubbing alcohol on a paper towel and removed the sale sticker from the bottom. I tore a piece of plastic wrap off the roll that was large enough to cover my bowl, and I set it down on my craft mat, being sure not to smooth it out. Then I dripped ink on the plastic wrap until I liked the combination of colors and the plastic was mostly full of color. Then I placed my bowl in the center of the plastic wrap and carefully applied the plastic wrap to the sides without smoothing it out too much (so it keeps the wrinkled pattern). Then I flipped it over to dry. I ended up using 7 colors on the bowl. I wanted something bright and fun so I we...

I love making Christmas Ornaments . I have more than I need, but, I just can't help myself. So, when I was at the hardware store and saw these tiles, I knew I had to get them to make ornaments. They sell these "arabesque tiles" in sheets that are roughly 1 square foot. The sheet includes 18 tiles attached to a mesh backing. I opened the package and peeled the tiles from the backing, so I could work with them individually. Then I got out my alcohol  inks , a craft mat , and a can of air. I knew I wanted to use the metallic inks (Ranger calls theirs  mixatives ) to give them a nice shimmer and shine. It felt like a festive choice. I decided since I was adding the bling with metallics, that I'd stick with similar color shades as a base. So my first one was red. I chose a few shades of red and dripped them on the tile and blew them with the canned air. I layered lighter and darker shades of red and gold ink until the tile was compl...

During last week's project , I mentioned that I had found two vases that I wanted to craft with in my stash of glassware. Well last week I spray painted over the ink, this week I decided to spray paint the vase white (on the inside) and then use the plastic wrap technique, that I've finally gotten a hang of, on the outside. So I took my vase outside and covered it in plastic wrap and painter's tape to keep the spray paint on the inside of the vase. I gave it several light coats of white semi-gloss spray paint  and let it finish drying overnight.   When I unwrapped it the next day, it was a lovely plain white vase. I laid out a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover my vase and dripped ink all over it. I went a little overboard actually, but had a lot of fun covering it in ink drops. I used a rainbow of both Ranger Inks and Pinata Inks . I set my vase onto the plastic wrap and wrapped it around the vase. I tried not to w...

One of the most common questions I receive about alcohol ink is: "How do I seal that" or "What should I seal that with?" Even when I see other inkers on Instagram or Pinterest, I often have the same question, "I wonder what they sealed that with?" Sealing glass alcohol ink projects is even trickier since the end product needs to remain glossy and translucent. I've often just skipped sealing the craft projects because I was worried the sealant would either ruin the ink or the glossy finish. But if you want your alcohol ink projects to last, it's usually a good idea to seal them. So, I dug out all of my sealants (well, I do have a couple more versions of regular spreadable mod podge, but I picked the one I thought would work the best and most easily on glass). I ended up with 8 different products. I'm sure there are lots more similar products available out there, but these 8 are definitely a good start. Since I wanted to test the resu...

The current trend for alcohol ink is to use a low power hair dryer or heat gun to gently blow the ink around on yupo or ceramic tiles to create fluid art. I have been meaning to try it out for ages, but I wasn't sure what would work best or how the ink would behave under the high heat (but I've set alcohol ink on fire with success, so I didn't have much too lose). So I decided to throw caution to the wind and try it out. I set protected my table  and picked out a few colors of alcohol ink that would mix to create attractive colors and thinning solution (pictured above is Pinata Extender ). I decided to try out my hair dryer on low first...so I squeezed some ink onto a ceramic tile and squirted some Extender onto the ink and then hit it with the hair dryer. The effect was similar to canned air. It blew the ink violently and created little tendrils. It also is much less targeted than the canned air and blew my ink bottles and pipettes across the table. ...