Scrapbook & Cards Today Blog: 3T's with Linda Beeson

What Can I Do With Alcohol Inks?

Today, we asked designer Linda Beeson to share some techniques with us using alcohol inks. Linda graciously accepted this assignment and is sharing part 1 of 2 parts with us today. Stay tuned next Tuesday (September 23rd) for part 2! We hope you enjoy Linda’s tutorial.

Here is a little bit about Linda:

Linda lives in Southern California with her husband. Together they raised 4 children and now enjoy 6 grandchildren; all of whom supply great inspiration for scrapbooking. Linda loves all forms of crafting and found her niche in scrapbooking and cardmaking several years ago. Linda loves experimenting with new products and figuring out new and innovative ways to use them. Linda blogs regularly at http://pkod.blogspot.com.

Here is Linda’s technique:

Alcohol Inks are permanent, transparent inks by Ranger. They are designed to colour non-porous materials like glossy or coated papers, metal, acrylic, etc. They work best when combined with the Alcohol Blending Solution. Stay tuned for part two because I really like to use them on regular white cardstock that is not coated or glossy and I want to share some projects where I have made some fun backgrounds with those kinds of papers too.

There are a few different ways to apply the inks to the surface you want to work with; I like to drop small amounts on my paper and use the blending solution to “move” the inks around, so that is what I am going to share today.

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I have started with a piece of coated, white paper. I like to work with a piece that is larger than what I am going to need. That way when I am done, I can stamp on it and/or cut it to the size needed. In this first photo, I have lightly coated my paper with some of the blending solution by rubbing it around with my fingers.You need to work quickly because the blending solution dries very fast. I also like to decide on a colour scheme that I want to work with; I usually start with two colours and then add a third colour and/or one of the metallic colours. Too many colours and putting too much on the paper right away will possibly lead to a muddy colour. You can see in the photo that each drop starts to spread or run as soon as it hits the paper.

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From here, I will add a few drops of the blending solution on the coloured drops. This causes the colours to “move” or spread even more. I will wait a little bit for these drops to start drying and then add more; maybe introducing another colour at this point. One thing I love about using these inks is that you can continue to play with them until you have a look that you want. Even if they have pretty much dried, you can add more of the blending solution and they will still “move.” After you have a good amount of your paper coloured, add a couple drops of one of the metallic colours. If I have too much liquid sitting in one spot on my paper, I will pick it up and slant it so the liquid moves around and spreads. A couple drops of the blending solution will create the look of “spots” again. Set your piece aside to dry when you are satisfied with the look.

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Here are two examples of my papers when they were dry. You can see the colour schemes that I worked with. From here you can decide if you want to use a piece for an entire background or if you want to just stamp an image on it and cut it out.

For one of my cards, I stamped a floral background stamp on an entire piece of coloured paper. For the other example, I stamped the knife, fork and spoon stamps that are basically “outline” stamps onto my coloured paper and then cut them out. This is just a fun way to “colour” an image.

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Thank you
by Linda Beeson

supplies: cardstock, unknown; patterned paper, BasicGrey; stamps, Anna Griffin, All Night Media, Plaid, Peddler’s Pack; ink, Tsukineko; alcohol ink and blending solution, Ranger

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Sctalcoholkind2

How Kind of You
by Linda Beeson

supplies: patterned paper, Daisy Bucket Designs; stamps, Crafty Secrets (silverware), Wordsworth (sentiment); ink, Tsukineko; alcohol ink and blending solution, Ranger; fabric paint, Tulip; brad, Making Memories; other, sewing machine

Thanks Linda, for “de-mystifying” alcohol inks for us today and we can’t wait until next week when you explore this medium even more!

Last week's winner of the gorgeous Scenic Route goodies goes to lucky comment number...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

Timestamp: 2008-09-16 00:23:59 UTC

And luck comment #61 belongs to ... Kim C ...

Kim C says timestamped: Sept. 6, 2008 @ 7:33pm

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Congrats ... Kim ! Please contact Catherine with your mailing info at [email protected] .

Comments

Thanks Linda!!!!! You have perfect timing -- I only recently purchased my first alcohol inks and started exploring with them. Your tutorial is excellent!!! Thanks for posting it!!!!

Posted by: Heather H. | September 16, 2008 at 01:09 AM