Cheap Tip: Homemade Alcohol Inks

Hey there friends.  I have a couple of tips to share with y'all today to save yourselves a bit of money.  I know that I have a very strict budget and cannot get everything I would like.  I wish that I could have an unlimited crafting budget..boy would I have a ball.  I have a list as tall as I am of things I would like to have.

The first money saving tip I have for y'all is making your own alcohol inks.  I don't know if any of my wonderful followers already do this, but I thought I would share how I make mine.  I saw a video on YouTube and thought I would give it a try.

Here are the products you will need to make the inks:

Sharpie or BIC Markers.  I bought a pack of 24 Sharpies at Wal-mart for right around $10.

Rubbing Alcohol.  You can buy this is 50%, 70% or 90%.  I have the 70% because it was on sale a Rite Aid 3 bottles for $5.

Baby Food Jars.  I didn't have to buy the baby food and a friend of mine gave these jars to me.  I want to purchase drop bottles to transfer my inks into like ones from Ranger, but I haven't been able to afford them yet, so I still have my inks in the jars.

Ok.  Here we go:

Step 1:  Put 2oz of alcohol in each jar that you are going to use.  This is a good ratio amount for the amount of ink in each marker.

Step 2:  Take the marker apart.  To do this, use a pair of needle nosed pliers and a pair of vice grips.  For those of you who don't know what these are, ask your husbands, boyfriends, dads, or another male friend and I'm sure they will know and maybe even have some you can borrow.  Hold onto the barrel of the marker with the vice grips and using the needle nosed pliers, pull out the nib and drop it into the jar.  Next, twist off the nib end of the marker.  It's pretty hard, but if you twist enough, it will come off.  Once you have it off, turn it upside down and the ink barrel will fall out.  Take your needle nosed pliers and hold the ink chamber and cut it in half using an old pair of scissors or a craft knife.  Once you have it in half, slit it down the middle with your craft knife and drop each piece into the jar.

Step 3:  Put the lid on the jars and let the ink set for about 3 hours.  Either on the lid, or on a piece of sticky note, write the name color so you will know.

Step 4: Using your needle nosed pliers, pull out the ink barrels and squeeze as much of the ink out as possible.  You might want to wear rubber gloves or use another set of needle nosed pliers.

Step 5: Using an extra white flower, put it in the ink for about 5 minutes, let it dry and then adhere it onto the top of the lid.  This lets you see what color your flower will be.

Here's a pic of some of the flowers that I made today for a card that I created.

Here are the flowers sitting in the ink.

 Here are the flowers after they have dried and are ready to use.

I hope you guys liked this tutorial.  If you decide to make these inks, let me know what you think.

So, here's the breakdown of the cost:

Markers--$10
Alcohol-- $ 5
Jars---    $0

Total:  $15.00
Makes 24 jars of color so each jar of ink costs: $0.63.  Compare that to the $9.99 for two or three bottles of the Ranger brand.  Pretty cost effective right?

God bless y'all.