My husband was away on a business trip for the last 2 weeks and while he was gone, I made a mess of the kitchen! Haha, not really, but I did take over the kitchen table to play with something new. I have been interested in playing with epoxy and alcohol inks. Now, these are really 2 different things and they sometimes go together but then they don't... This all started before Christmas with a gift I wanted to give my daughter, Jade. She is newly married and still needs some items for her kitchen, which led me to wanting to jazz up some dip cups that I purchased off amazon.
Alcohol inks are made from isopropyl alcohol and permanent ink. It is a medium that you have to work pretty quickly with because the alcohol evaporates and leaves the colored ink behind. It is fun to work with because you can add different colors and they will push each other aside to make fun patterns. There are solid colors and glittery pearlish colors that give it a fun shine. (This is Onyx, he was helping me be creative)!
I think the dip cups came out pretty good. For a first try of playing with abstract color and inks, they were fun. Alcohol inks need some added protection because they will chip and wash off, which leads to the playing with epoxy resin.
Epoxy Resin has been around for awhile and you see it a lot online and people pouring it onto wood and other items to make tables, coasters, earrings, tumblers, almost anything! It is a bit daunting to dip my toes into because it does seem to be complicated. There are strict guidelines with mixing, stirring, pouring, time, color, omg.. the list goes on. Jade gave me some for Christmas so I was excited but nervous to try it. So after I did all the alcohol ink on the dip cups and some tiles I had, I got out the epoxy. I have to say, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be while I was working on it but I did see a bunch of errors once they were dry. You only get around 45 mins to work with the epoxy before it starts to set. I made too much the first time and rushed it at the end to get it out in time. I also got some dry spots because it wasn't thick enough, again, learning curve with how to deal with how epoxy works. But this was good practice for any future projects! (I see a glittery tumbler in my future!)
I am not sure what I will do with this in the future or how I will add them to the site, but I have some ideas that I am pondering. I always love an integration of vinyl and other mediums, so it might be something like that. There is big business out there for personalized tumblers but I am not sure if I want to go in that direction.. we will see.
Thanks for checking out the Artsy Lion blog! I hope it has been fun and entertaining! Have an awesome day! Christine