Alcohol Inks on Acetate Challenge

My friend Steph and I have regular ‘play dates’ where we get together to try out different products and techniques that we can use in making cards.  At the end of the session we split the backgrounds between us (we often make 2 of each) and challenge each other to use them to make finished cards.  It never ceases to amaze me how different two cards can be even when they start with the same material.  Steph has kindly let me show some of her cards in my blog.  So I will show you some of the techniques we have tried and the different cards we have made from them.

Todays Technique is Alcohol Inks on Acetate.

You need:

• a range of alcohol inks in different colours
• some alcohol blending solution
• a blending tool/applicator (with extra felt pads)
• some pieces of acetate: you can buy these in sheets or rescue pieces from the front of old folders or packaging.  We found it easiest to have these cut into smaller pieces (about A5 size).
• a non-stick craft mat or scrap paper will help protect your work surface.

Choose 2 or 3 ink colours and place dots of colour onto a felt pad. Apply alcohol blending solution to the pad and then ‘smooch’ the pad onto a piece of acetate to cover it with interesting patterns.  Don’t overdo it or you will blend all the colours together.  Experiment with different colour-ways to get a range of different backgrounds.

Here are some of the different cards that Steph and I produced using these backgrounds.  In some we simply stamped an image onto the acetate using a Staz-On ink; for others we stamped an image on card underneath and coloured it in before putting the acetate over the top.  In one I stamped a butterfly image and then cut out around the image.  For all of them it made a big difference what colour card you chose to put the acetate onto and/or to surround it for the finished card – it can really bring out some of the less strong colours.