A first play with alcohol inks and Yupo - Part 1

Crumbs, quite a few bloggers that I follow have used the Easter holiday to play with alcohol inks and Yupo paper - me included!

The previous week I really wanted to enter the Mixed Media challenge run by Loll and Bonnie, where the theme was acetate. I got my heart set on using a poor man's version of alcohol inks and bought some blending solution, which I then dropped onto scribbled Pro markers on acetate - but the colours hardly moved so I gave up. Sigh.

Then, too late for the challenge, I spotted that Clarity Stamps had a really great offer of 8 Tim Holtz Adirondack alcohol inks for £20 - wahoo!! That's £2.50 per bottle with free postage and seems hard to beat?! The slight catch is that you get what colours Clarity choose from available stock, but I figured it was good enough for a first try and also might form the basis of a few more to be added later on. I think the offer is still on folks! I got three colours in the brown spectrum but in fairness they're varied enough (Caramel, Teakwood and Pebble) to work really well together, whilst being different enough - and thanks to Clarity I'm set up with a pretty decent variety of colours to build on.

I spent Easter Sunday having a first try - my results most certainly aren't any more than very basic - but I was left with two pieces of inked up Yupo paper and made two cards from each of them. These are two from the darker sheet:

I used:

- one sheet of Tim Holtz white Yupo paper, just the small size (5" x 7")

- two white card blanks, one is 5.25" x 4" (side opening) and the second one is 4" x 4" square

- three different alcohol inks (Currant, Bottle and Caramel - and possibly a little drop or two of Teakwood right at the end). I was so excited I didn't keep a note - was also trying not to get the stuff over myself/desk/floor despite having protected what I could. However, I learned that disposable gloves are a must, I have them by the boxful here, just got carried away :)

- in true amateur fashion, I added drops of the inks plus some blending solution onto the sheet of Yupo paper then blew through a straw onto them, for as long as it took to add more coverage and spread the inks around a bit and repeated the process until I felt it was time to stop

- other crafters use an air 'puffer' or hairdryer apparently to move the inks around - as well as rubbing alcohol (on order) and various other wonderful techniques such as adding gold foiling. I have the silver and gold mixatives on order but, from what I've seen, the foiling would be stunning if I can get the spread of inks more subtle! And I yes, might very well still have some thin sheets of the very fine foil - dating back to the year 'dot'!

- then die cut two sets of frames using the Impression Obsession 'Rectangle 6 in 1 Frames' die

- selected two frames to suit what I wanted and also the duplicated ones from the other die cut sheet - glued ttwo frames together for more stability

- then trimmed the piece of Yupo, picking out which pieces I wanted to use and adhered them to the back of the frames by running very narrow red line tape around the back of the inner edge of each frame

- backed each framed piece of Yupo with fun foam for dimension then glued them onto each card - centrally for the first card and then leaving space for a die cut sentiment on the second card

- die cut the sentiment (hello) for the first card three times from white card, using a die from the MFT 'Hello There' set of dies, and glued the layers together before gluing the 'hello' in place

- die cut the 'smile' sentiment twice from white card and once from a snippet of the inked Yupo using a die from the Penny Black 'Hooray' set of dies, then glued the layers together before gluing the 'smile' in place underneath the framed piece of inked Yupo

- two cards - finished!

I've since taken the time and trouble to read a lot more about using Yupo and alcohol inks - Loll has some really great videos on YouTube. I love the softer look that folk manage to achieve - my next aim, providing the weather is good enough to have the craft room well ventilated! I didn't even know about ventilation being important when I was playing on Sunday, thankfully not in full rubbing alcohol mode, else it could have been dodgy to say the least. Will I ever learn to always do some research before launching headlong into something :) Doubtful.