A Demonstration With Alcohol Inks

Morning Peeps,

Last weekend I did a couple of 20 mins Demo's at Alexandra Palace at the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking show. A couple of ladies who attended the Demo's asked me if I could possibly pop the details of the Demo onto my Blog so they could visit and have a look, referring back to what I had shown them.

So, without further ado, here are the cards I made for the Demo, the inky backgrounds I had made to pass thru the audience so peeps could see the technique close up and an inky piece that I did yesterday morning just to show how I used them from start to finish.

Card 1 - The Red Card




This card was made by creating a distressed looking background using Alcohol inks from the Ranger Earthtones set and the stamping is using the new Nature and Birdy stamps I have designed, all of which are available from The Artistic Stamper.





I also used Glossy Accents to emphasise the swirls, hat and wording on this card. The stamping was done using a Ranger Archival Inkpad in black.


Card 2 - The Blue Card





Again, this card is made using the same inky technique but this time the stamping is using a swirl element from the Nature set and some of my Dashy Dot Stitchels stamps, again available from The Artistic Stamper.





For this card, I embellished the designs with Broken China Distress Stickles. The stamping was done using a Ranger Archival Inkpad in black.


The Technique - Distressed Alchol Ink Backgrounds




For this technique you will need a couple of co-ordinating colours of Alcohol Ink. I have used Ranger Brights and Lights for this particular project - Purple Twilight, Cool Peri and Juniper. These happen to be my fave colour combo's in the Dabbers so I figured they would be for the Alcohol inks too, and yep, they are!! You will also need some Blending Solution, I tend to use Surgical Spirit if I have no proper Blender as I have found it works just as well and is a fraction of the cost! Just treat it the same as Blender, no naked flames etc as it is extremely flammable. Along with the above, you will also need a paintbrush, a non-stick craft sheet, glossy cardstock, a heatgun, an Archival Ink Pad and some stamps.




Start by swirling random lines of alcohol ink directly onto the craft sheet. Repeat this until you have used all the colours you want. Take a piece of glossy cardstock and with the glossy side down, swoosh the card thru the inks - twisting and lifting the card to make an unusual background. **Photopaper doesn't work as well as Glossy Card because it is more porous. Glossy Card has a clay coating and the alcohol inks sit on the surface of the card and therefore you get the proper depth of colour and shineyness too**






Set this aside to dry and using your Blending solution, add a few droplets to the ink left on your craft sheet and repeat the glossy card process - you will have cleaned up most of the inks and also have another inky background but this time it will be paler as you have used Blender.





Next, using a paintbrush soaked with Blender, hold it in one hand and tap this over the edge of your index finger on the other hand, to make little dots of blender land on the glossy card. When you have finished dropping blender onto your card, use a heatgun and see the paler patches appearing - very similar to the Distress Inks when water is dropped onto them.




Next, using the Archival Ink Pad, stamp the designs you like onto the surface of the glossy card. Remember to take extra care when stamping as this is slippy and sometimes your stamp can move slightly meaning your image won't be crisp.




It is important that you use an Archival inkpad/oil based inkpad because this ink will not affect the background you have made. If you used a StaZon pad, as this is solvent based, it would remove the alcohol ink background from under the stamped image and you won;t have a very good impression.




Once you have done your stamping, use a heat gun to set the ink. As glossy card is not as porous as other card, the Archival ink will sit on the card surface and take yonks to dry...so heat setting it is one way around this problem.




Add Glossy Accents to emphasize and embellish your design and voila! Your project is completed. You can now add the inky project to a card, use it for scrapbooking or any other project you want to. The stamps I used are from the Fairytale Frenzy sheet of unmounted from the new Tim Holtz collection. I adore that butterfly - it makes me think that he has been playing in ink and is flicking it off his wings :O))




I hope this helps and you will find this "demo" useful. I would love some feedback so any comments are gratefully received....if they are nice ones obviously LOL

Thanks for looking!

Hels x