TECHNIQUE TUESDAY - or something ....

I FINALLY got some play time in the studio on Sunday. Before moving forward on the Altered Playing Card challenge, I wanted to have my alcohol misters done. I am making one for every SU color I own.  I have the 30 main colors (or will have once my order comes in next week to replace the 7 retired colors) plus my favorite neutrals - Creamy Caramel (retired but my 'go to' vintage tone) and two other browns.

So here's my supplies: 91% Alcohol, SU reinkers, Ranger Ink mister bottles, funnel, needle nose pliers and these: 

Although the alcohol inks are all liquid, I wanted to give a little agitation in the bottle so I used 3 BBs in each mister. I checked. I put 3 in a container with just the alcohol and left sit overnight. These do NOT affect the color.

With the exception of the misters from RangerInk and the 91% alcohol, my goal is to utilize what I have on hand. I printed labels out on my computer (okay, this one is hand written but I managed to miss typing a label for Real Red somehow) then punched them out using the mini curly label punch. I tried to place the labels at the same point on all of the bottles. By doing this, I could use the bottom edge of the label as my "Fill to Here" mark with the alcohol.

So I labeled the bottles then one at a time, filled them to the mark. After some trial and error I found that approx. 30 drops of the Reinker gave me the truest-to-stamped color.
Some of the reinker bottles were clogged. I used the needle nose pliers to remove the tip then dropped the tip in a little container of plain rubbing alcohol to swirl and soak for a couple minutes. Tip back in place and things worked fine again.

I stamped a heart with each color. This served two purposes. 1 - to give me a visual when matching the ink to alcohol ratio and 2 - for creating little labels on the top of the mister bottle. I used this mini heart punch by Marvy to punch out a color sample and adhered to the top of the matching bottle with a mini glue dot. 

In the coming weeks, you'll get a better idea of how this comes together.

In the mean time, check out this VIDEO from Tim Holtz from CHA 2014 on multiple ways to use Alcohol Inks! 

Creative Blessings!

Kelly