Monday, July 21, 2008

Rubberstamping 101: Using Ranger Alcohol inks...I LOVE them...

Ranger’s Alcohol Inks

These are my favorite new product. Here is some great information I gathered about working with Alcohol inks.

1. They are acid free, so no problems with using it in your scrapbooks.

2. They are permanent, although if necessary you can remove with a solvent agent.

3. They are transparent. Works great on glass such as ornaments, microscope slides, and acetate (transparencies), and still allows you to see artwork behind it.

4. They dry extremely fast. This allows the artist to finish up their tasks quickly.

5. Large variety of colors. There are currently 12 colors available, and the color combinations you can make are just breathtaking. Not sure when, but it sounds like more colors will come out eventually.

6. Works fabulously on non-porous surfaces such as glossy paper; metal; acrylic; shrink plastic; mica; game pieces; Mohong tiles; actetate/transparencies; glass microscope slides; and Ceramic tiles to name a few.

7. You can create your background paper or scrapbook page elements using the inks on glossy cardstock. Once the inks dry, you can rubberstamp over the inks, thus creating beautiful works of art.

8. Ease of color coordinating scrapbook elements. You can easily color coordinate the metal brads, metal hinges, and metal photo corners all on a single layout.

9. You can create works of art well beyond the scrapbook. You can make beautiful necklaces, magnets, earrings and pins out of dominoes. You can make fabulous magnets, coasters, and trivets out of ceramic tiles. You can cover a plain wooden or plastic frame with metal tape and then apply the inks to create gorgeous one of a kind photo frames.

10. You can recycle old items. Take an old altoid tin (or nut can, popcorn tin, etc) and use the alcohol inks to recolor covering the current label (printed directly on the metal).

When working with alcohol inks, I highly recommend the method that Tim Holtz uses. You take an old wooden rubberstamp – the kind with a handle attached to the base – and put a piece of Velcro on it. Then you cut small strips of felt to attach to the Velcro. (Club Scrap does carry the hand tool right now as well as the inks). A little alcohol ink goes a long ways. So you just squeeze a little bit – YES it comes in bottles only, not an ink pad – onto the felt. You can use one color at a time or mix them. You can use blending fluid to lighten your project. You just sort of dab up and down. If you want lots of dots, once the first coat is dry, dab just a tiny bit more here and there and the spots will show up.

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