Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Ceramic Tile and Alcohol Ink Mania!

After reading Artsyville's tutorial on ceramic tile and alcohol ink, I just couldn't wait to try it!

Back in February, I invited my friends, Amanda and Beth, to come over to try the tutorial with me.  Not sure what to expect, we surveyed the list of materials:

Fun with Alcohol Inks

  • white ceramic tile
  • Mod Podge Hard Coat
  • 1" brush
  • Adirondack alcohol inks
  • Adirondack alcohol blending solution
  • old tooth brush
I got the party started by diving into the alcohol blending solution.  I swirled it around the surface of my tile with an old toothbrush.  Then, I selected one of the alcohol inks to drip onto the tile... and magic.  The colors spread out and sometimes swirl when you add them.  Amanda and Beth jumped in and also got some amazing effects on their tiles, too.  Here are the fruits of our labor:

Beth's Tiles
Beth's Tiles

Amanda's Tiles
Amanda's Tiles

My Tile Designs
My Tiles

I think the hardest part of the whole process was waiting for each coat of the Mod Podge Hard Coat to dry (20 minutes for each coat!).  After the girls left for the night, I continued on to design some insects for my tiles.  I was already using decoupage sealer.  Might as well decoupage an original design, too, right?  Here's what I came up with:

Mod Podge FunAfter Mod Podge and Varnish


And to finish things off, I gave each tile a few coats of water-based varnish and a nice cork backing.  I think I just found my new addiction.

Finishing Up a Tile Project

Tiles All Done
"We hope that, when the insects take over the world, 
they will remember with gratitude how we took them 
along on all our picnics."
- Bill Vaughan

8 comments:

  1. Well now, I do believe you've taken it up a notch or six with this technique. You should do more.

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  2. Thanks! I plan on it. :)

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  3. I absolutely love these tiles!!!! Each one is beautiful. I'm on summer vacation, and happen to have a box of white tiles in the attic. Sounds like some fun art projects for me!! I wonder if my preschool class would be able to do this too - it would make a very creative Christmas present for their parents. Thanks for the inspiration. Deb (Found you from our Flying Lessons e-course!) :)

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  4. Hi Debbie. I just did some more of these the other day with my sister-in-law. It's addictive and fairly easy to do. Let me know if you have any questions. :)

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  5. These are gorgeous! Do you use them as coasters? I just bought some alcohol ink (after seeing a tutorial on pinterest) and want to make coasters with ceramic tiles. I was just looking around for a good sealer for them so the ink doesn't run when a wet drink cup is placed on it. I read somewhere that brush on mod podge would smudge it, but yours still look fantastic!!

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  6. Isolda, you could probably use them as coasters, but I would not recommend it. I think if you find a strong varnish, it may be okay, but the water-based varnish I use makes them shiny but doesn't protect them from extreme heat or condensation. Extreme exposure to these conditions makes the varnish crack. :-(

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! I'll poke around and see what kind of sealer I can use. I'll mod podge them first and then spray them down with something. Maybe acrylic? ;)

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  7. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commentators here!
    Ceramic tile

    ReplyDelete

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