Alcohol ink art at Little Sister, Eudlo (I have a problem)

This weekend some friends, my mother and I went to another art class on the Sunshine Coast. Last time we learned how to make paper roses. This time, it was to learn how to use alcohol ink, a craft technique I haven’t tried yet.

And to the surprise of no one, now I want to buy some and make all the things at home.

It’s so incredibly beautiful, unique every time, and a whole lot of fun. I actually feel like this would be a fun activity with kids, but knowing them, it would turn pretty messy pretty quickly. So um, maybe not.

Where we went: Little Sister, Eudlo

The class was hosted at Little Sister, based in Eudlo, on the Sunshine Coast. It’s a shop filled with amazing hand-made crafts, clothes, and accessories.

Walking into the store, it feels like a bit of a crafting wonderland looking through everything. And annoyingly, I always get distracted by talking to everyone, and then forget to buy anything!

On my radar are some gorgeous paper-quilling earrings I spotted. They’re so pretty! I had no idea you could do paper quilling to make earrings. In fact, they’ve inspired me to finally crack out the paper quilling kit at home and learn how to use it. Zero excuses.

But I digress.

Little Sister regularly runs different types of classes, including pottery workshops, floral arrangements, and the paper flower crafts session that I did last time.

The sessions are held on the patio out the front, nestled in amongst the gardens. It’s a small town, and incredibly serene, which makes for a very calm and peaceful session.

What we made (and what you need to try it at home)

During our class, we decorated two bookmarks, a card, and a quote.

Before we got into it, our host, Fi, ran us through all the supplies you need:

• Alcohol inks – available from craft stores, or even Amazon. For people based in Australia, you can find them at Craft Online or Spotlight. It looks like they can range anywhere from $25 to $45 for a bundle, or about $7 each.
• Paper – we used photo paper, but there’s also specialised paper you can buy (non-porous, synthetic, and water-resistant substrate). I think there’s a dedicated brand you can buy, Yupo, but Fi explained that photo paper does the job perfectly. If there’s any “Photo paper” watermarks on the back, just stick some white paper or another piece of photo paper back-to-back. Officeworks sells photo paper for about $10, Kmart is probably cheaper. Fi mentioned a lot of people are starting to toss them, so you can possibly find photo paper at op shops (second-hand stores) for even cheaper, though Fi joked that she’ll have gotten in first.
• Isopropyl alcohol (iso) – available from hardware stores, or some beauty stores. Iso can be used for cleaning, hand sanitiser etc. Bunnings has a small bottle for $10, but from a quick search online it seems there are beauty stores and Kogan selling 1L for about the same price. Bear in mind you really don’t need much.
• Alcohol ink blower – a little hand pump with a nozzle that allows you to direct the ink in different ways. From a quick google, it looks like you can even use those ones designed for cleaning your keyboards.

And that’s it!

Then all you do is pour a bit of iso on the paper (enough to wet it), then a drop of the alcohol ink. For the bookmarks, we poured the iso in a bit of a wavy pattern on the paper so the design had a bit of “movement” to it.

Then using the blower, you pump the air to blow the ink through the alcohol. The ink moves, forms patterns, and blends colours. It’s really fun to watch and experiment. Then as the alcohol evaporates it dries the ink. The whole process literally takes only a few minutes at most.

For the final step, you need to “cure” it so that you don’t get any marks on your fingers etc. Fi said that she just sprays a bit of hairspray over it, and it’s done.

Here’s how my efforts turned out:

Of course, being a bit of a self-critic I looked at them and wished I had done things a little differently, or tried something else. But that’s all part of the fun of trying something new, and experimenting! And partly why I would love to buy supplies and try it again.

But truly, it was so much easier than I expected.

The fun comes into deciding what patterns you make. It all depends on what shapes you apply the alcohol to the paper first, where the ink dots are, whether you blow the ink dots towards each other to blend the colours, or even do just one colour and add something else a bit later!

Because of the nature of it, it’s impossible to do the same pattern twice, which makes it so tempting to keep playing around.

Take a look at how beautiful all the items are that Fi made.

Now to hold myself back

It’s so, so tempting to buy some alcohol inks, but I’m not kidding when I say I really don’t need to add more things to my to do list right now.

Not to mention that on the weekend I realised just how much stuff I have waiting to be used. Random things, like timber puzzles, wooden coasters, the aforementioned paper quilling kit. I’ve even got some empty wine and champagne glasses ready to be etched.

I’m contemplating giving myself a monthly challenge next month, but I haven’t decided exactly what it will be yet. Some of the ideas I’ve played with:

• Make (x) amount of things this month.
• Make a list of my supplies, and create a project for each one.
• Try selling (x) things? (Full disclosure – I’m not tempted to sell craft projects. I don’t like the commitment levels when I’m so time poor already, and it means I’d have to deal with people…no thanks! So I think I can scratch this one off the list already)

Maybe I should just make it a reward. If I get rid of x amount of things, or make x amount of things, then I’m allowed to try alcohol inks. Maybe I could put it on my wishlist and see if my husband gets it for me for Christmas, or even add it to my 52 list for next year!

So many options…and no idea where to even start.

Do you have any suggestions for what my monthly challenge could be? Or do you have any new crafts or hobbies you’ve tried lately and dived headfirst into?