New Obsession

Alcohol inks! In case you don't know what they are.....they are inks or paints with an alcohol base. Unlike oil paints or watercolor paints. These inks are thinned and use with Isopropyl alcohol, at least 91% alcohol. There are many, many videos on Youtube, so if you like what you see, go check them out and maybe you'll be hooked, like me.

You need alcohol inks, of course, which you can buy at Michaels or Amazon or any art or craft store. You also need a special paper, such as Yupo (expensive) or the wrong side of glossy photo paper. You will need the alcohol mentioned above to push your inks around.

You also need an air source to push the inks around on your paper, such as a straw, canned air, a bulb puffer, a hair dryer or an air compressor (my favorite)

I will not go into detail, but if you are interested, just go to Youtube and search for alcohol ink techniques or painting and you will get enough to keep you very busy.

Now to show you just a few of what I have done. The first several were done by using a hairdryer (preferably one with a brush that you can remove). Mine is a Revlon, which many demonstrators use.

It is quite unpredictable and often surprising, sometimes frustrating, but always fun.

These next flowers were made using an air compressor to push the inks around. There are many tutorials on making flowers. I really want to make more of these. Many got thrown away, yet  some can be fixed if you goof up by using a tissue and alcohol to take away your mistakes. Sometimes!

 

These were all done on 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 paper, perfect to use on my cards,

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Finished

 I've been working on this little embroidered scissors case for awhile. It was very fiddly but I am pleased with the results. It was a pattern and kit from Mary Corbet, embroiderer extraordinaire. She writes a wonderful blog, which I get in my emails and I could have made the case without buying the kit. I can't seem to buy nice linen and the kit came with the linen, all the threads, silk Dupioni for the lining, and even a needle and button. The needle is a size 7 John James embroidery which I thought would be too small, but it was great and and I used it through all the stitching. It was all done with one or two strands of floss.

Her directions are fabulous and there were copious print outs. Go to her website, Needle and Thread, and see all the interesting things she has. She also gives freely of her advice and has many, many stitch videos on Youtube. I used her a lot when I was doing my daily stitching.

Front where you can also see the buttonholed loop, which was made by doing the button hole stitch around a loop of threads.

I learned some new to me techniques, whcih is mainly why I bought the kit with all the directions.

Here you can see the prettty silk lining. It will hold one or two scissore that are no more than four inches long.It will hold my special litle Gingher embroidery scissors that were given to me by my sister many years ago. I have never lost them and I always put them back in the leather sheath.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.