Alcohol Ink Backgrounds and a Birthday Card

The first of two posts today.

I suddenly realised that it is my friend’s birthday tomorrow and I had no card made, and nothing left in my stash, so I pulled out all the stops to get one in the post tonight. I decided to take the opportunity of replenishing my card stash at the same time, and began by creating a collection of alcohol ink backgrounds. I shall be posting about the cards in due course.

Wanting to use recycled materials as much as possible, I found some A5 fliers about solar panels that we picked up at the County Show in the summer, prior to deciding which company to go with. They are plain white on the back, and quite shiny, so ideal for alcohol inks.

My collection of alcohol inks consists of some from Adirondack, including the four Mixatives (Gold, Silver, Copper and Pearl) and a set of Pinata alcohol inks. In the list of ingredients below, these will be indicated “A” and “P” accordingly. I cleared up the mess on my non-stick craft sheet with surgical spirit (rubbing alcohol) and kitchen paper. Horrible smell!

1. Clover, Stream and Pearl Mixative (all A):

2. Wild Plum (A), Sapphire Blue (P) and Gold Mixative (A):

3. Pitch Black (A), White (P) and Pearl Mixative (A):

4. Burro Brown and Sunbright Yellow and Lime Green (P) and Copper Mixative (A):

5. Chilli Pepper, Calabaza Orange and Sunbright Yellow (P) and Gold Mixative (A):

6. Wild Plum (A), White (P) and Pearl Mixative (A):

7. Burro Brown, Calabaza Orange, and a very little Sunbright Yellow (P), and Copper Mixative (A):

8. Sunbright Yellow and White (P), Wild Plum and Pearl Mixative (A); I also dropped a lot of Pearl Mixative onto the sheet at the end:

9. All the Mixatives (A): Gold, Silver, Copper and Pearl, with some Clear Extender (P):

10. Re-used felt applicator from #8 above, with the addition of some Clear Extender (P), and then plenty of Pearl Mixative (A) and White (P) dropped onto the sheet at the end. I added plenty of the white because the printing on the reverse was starting to show through a bit.

11. Re-used felt applicator from #6 above, with White and Clear Extender (P) and then Pearl Mixative (A) dropped onto the sheet at the end. I love these pale marbled-effect ones.

The whole collection of alcohol ink backgrounds. Quite a good collection to be going on with! Unfortunately, as usual, the shimmery and metallic effects don’t show up very well on the photos. I love those Mixatives, especially the pearl one.

Just before I finished, my hubby called me down to pay the builder who’s been working on our outhouse, and I admitted to feeling even more unsteady on my feet than usual – all those alcohol fumes had gone to my head and I felt distinctly woozy!! My hubby said to the builder, “There you are, you can charge what you like – in that state she’ll sign anything” lol lol!!! Until I stood up I hadn’t realised how much of the fumes I must have been breathing in! You definitely need adequate ventilation for this job, especially if you are doing a lot.

I think I’m feeling a bit hung over now…

Now for the birthday card. I chose the alcohol ink background #1 above, and a matching Core’dinations paper from the “Gemstones” range. This has been in my stash for years, along with some other Core’dinations papers, and I thought it high time I used them up. The “Gemstones” range has a lovely iridescent sheen to it, but it doesn’t respond very well to the usual treatments that work so well with these papers (sanding, tearing etc. to reveal the core) so I tend just to emboss it and leave it at that.

Being a skinflint and a cheapskate, I cut the middle out of the alcohol ink background layer so I wouldn’t waste any – you can waste acres of card over the years by not doing this, and covering it all up when matting and layering!! I embossed the Core’dinations sheet with the Stampin’ Up Mosaic Madness embossing folder, using my Cuttlebug, and attached some dark red rick-rack across the corner.

I chose some flowers that I’d made some time ago, out of my stash, and attached them with hot glue. Then I used the Stampin’ Up Mosaic Madness punch to punch out some shapes from the strip of alcohol ink background that I’d cut off the bottom, and stuck one of these down onto the embossed card, and the others onto some offcuts of Core’dinations paper (before embossing). There is a small piece of this inside the card as well. The punched out pieces had a line of Aged Mahogany distress ink added with the Ranger brush tip to give them a bit of definition. The “Happy Birthday” stamp was one I’ve had for years, and I have no idea where it came from or who manufactured it. I repeated the same stamp inside, and in both cases used Aged Mahogany distress ink to co-ordinate with the large flower and rick-rack. The smaller flowers were made from Penny Duncan’s Hibiscus cutting file. The base card was inked lightly with Peacock Feathers distress ink, and also on the back and inside, and I applied the same to the edges of the envelope. This card isn’t one of my best – I’m not entirely happy with the composition, but I was working under pressure to get it done in time and I finished with 10 minutes to spare before my hubby had to go out!

I’ll hope to do better with the others. Watch this space.