Having a play with alcohol inks

I cleared the desk, put on an apron and disposable gloves, had kitchen roll on standby in case, got Len to entertain Dudley and out came the alcohol inks yesterday when it was raining 'Dudleys and Kittys'.

And this was the result:

I ditched one as it came out like mud - my fault entirely. But this is a heads up that if you've seen Jennifer McGuire's recent video on creating backgrounds using alcohol inks and Tim Holtz 'Sparkle' card I can confirm that it's huge fun! I added some silver mixative to the torquoise piece BTW, although it wasn't really needed as the sparkle on its own is so lovely. The array of colours that Jennifer has to choose from is much wider than mine needless to say. And, as ever, pieces like this don't look really finished until they're tweaked/trimmed and popped in a frame or such. And there are three pieces there, a pink one in the middle at the back which has more colour variations than really shows in the photo.

Jennifer used some gorgeous 'frame' dies by Simon Says Stamp that I'm too scared to order for fear of being stung by UK Customs. So, I'm going to attempt to use some pretty frames and some floral dies I have already. There's going to be a join where the floral die cut inside the frame will touch the frame itself but it's worth a try!

I've searched most companies that we stock here in the UK for similar dies and found just one die that almost fits the bill but nothing as pretty and delicate as the SSS ones. No doubt it will only be a matter of time though :)

Just out of interest - has anyone here had experience of SSS goodies being sent to the UK? I'm sure I bought some years ago and not only was I stung for import duty but our Customs had the temerity to even include the cost of postage from the US in their calculations. So I've not fallen into that trap again, although it's a real shame that SSS doesn't have an outlet or franchise in the UK - they would make a fortune!

I'm still trying to catch up on Playground commenting so please bear with me!