Inspiration Friday - Just playing around

As I'm sure many of you know by now - I'm easily amused, and once I get going with something I need to play it out til the end. Or until I collapse from exhaustion - which is what sent me to bed at 6am, only to wake up at 10 am to keep going. Last night around midnight I was browsing through last years copy of Handcrafted Jewelry. On page 11, Jess from Vintaj shows how to apply alcohol ink on metal to colour it. Usually, I would file something like that away with the million and one other things I want to try someday.  However, I had a bunch a Vintaj bits, and I also own 6 colours of alcohol inks.  I needed to try it out right then.

Btw - this also works on lucite, and glass! The glass did better with just the straight inks, and no metalFX though.

(Note - I got my alcohol inks from Micheals)

I started squirting and brushing the inks on any piece of metal I could find on my desk. The results were pretty and subtle - then I remembered our MetalFX, so I went and grabbed the box of supplies that I use for formulating the colours. This is where the magic happened for me. The colour combinations that you can get by blending different shades of inks, with different MetalFX is unlimited. As well, you can build up successively by allowing it to dry, then adding more colour (both ink and MetalFX)

The finish is surprisingly sturdy. I scrubbed each one quite vigorously with a paper towel. I do recommend sealing before you make it into something with a bit of Renaissance Wax.  

Be on the watch for a ton of other projects coming your way that you can use our MetalFX in. It's neat stuff!