USING ALCOHOL INKS
Stamps by Pink
Cat Studio
I know many of you already
have your Christmas Cards mailed so I wanted to demonstrate
a technique that can be applied year long for beautiful
backgrounds. Many of you have perfected your alcohol
ink technques, but many write with questions about how
much to use on the felt applicator and how to best apply
the alcohol inks to glossy paper.
Sometimes getting the hang
of a technique takes a little trial and error, so I
decided to share my trials as well as the result I was
trying to achieve.
Alcohol inks are permanent
inks that can be diluted with blending solution or used
straight. The new metallic alcohol inks are a lot like
the paint in paint pens and are used similar to the
way paint pens are used to make polished stone backgrounds.
They're a little slower drying, which is nice because
they blend a little more nicely adding an overall metallic
sheen instead of puddles of metallic and they can be
applied directly to the applicator instead of directly
to the paper.
Step 1:
Cut a piece of glossy paper the size you want. I find
it easier to work with half sheets or smaller instead
of full sheets of paper.
Step 2:
  Drop
alcohol inks onto your felt applicator. You may use
cotton balls but be sure to wear gloves to keep from
staining your hands. Also be aware that cotton balls
will use more ink than the felt and therefore not be
as cost effective. How large you make the areas of ink
and how far apart the ink drops are vastly change the
end result. The applicator on the left was used to make
the background in the first exmple below and the applicator
on the right was used to make the second example and
the final background that was used for the card shown
above.
Step 3:
 First
Try:
The first applicator, above on the left, contained 8
drops of pesto, 21 drops of red pepper distributed in
three different spots and 10 drops of metallic gold.
I did have to reapply 3-4 drops of each color toward
the end because I didn't have enough ink to cover my
A2 size paper. The end result looked very spotted and
I have to confess that I hadn't shaken the gold metallic
ink bottle well enough so the gold came out very transluscent.
This wasn't the look I wanted at all. I also learned
that trying to apply alcohol inks with a felt tip over
cured gold embossing powder will seriously dull the
gold embossing powder and not look very good at all.
I don't normally count my drops of alcohol inks, but
somtimes telling someone that I just squeeze a little
on doesn't help unless they can see me do it.
 Next
Try:
I tend to like the look for larger spots of ink
instead of smaller spots of ink. For my next try I applied
the inks in larger areas, running the areas together.
I started with 30 drops of gold and 18 drops each of
red pepper and pesto. I photographed it while reapplying
the alcohol ink, using just a few drops of each when
reapplying. The end result was very metallic looking
and I'm sure I could have gotten away with less gold
but I was happy with the look. I'm supplying a close
up look to the left.  When
photographing cards made with this technique it's really
hard to see the nice ink detail that you can see when
looking directly at the card.
Other information about
the final card:
The sequins hanging from jump rings are Funquins
from WillowBead. The adhesive metal strip was cut
from a Karen Foster Metal Sheet,
crumpled and rolled back out flat before applied to
the card. The stamped images were applied to the card
using pop dots for dimension.
Adding Blending Solution:
If you want a more background with more subtle colors,
use a litte less alcohol ink and add some blending solution
to your applicator. The blending solution really makes
a more reactive looking background and separates the
metallic inks out more than just using the alcohol inks
alone. The pear tree card uses eggplant and lettuce
alcohol inks with the gold mixative. The quilled letter
card uses lettuce and pesto with gold mixative.
 
Coloring Metal:
These also work great on other non-porous surfaces.
Here are two examples of tins. Both use cranberry, eggplant
and silver metallic mixatives. There was a lot more
silver used on the smaller tin.
 
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