Techneek of the Week - Chipboard & Metallic Alcohol Ink

So this week I am going to share a rad techneek with you, using some products that are near and dear to my heart...Riff Raff Designs chipboard and Ranger alcohol inks. Now normally I wouldn't recommend using alcohol ink on a chipboard product because it just soaks right in, but the METALLIC inks stay nice and bright and shiny!!

Step the First:
Choose the alcohol ink you want to use. I picked GOLD, but the Ranger Metallics also come in silver and copper.


Step #2: Pick the shape you want to use. I chose the new Riff Raff Dragonfly, but you can use any chipboard for this techneek. You don't need to do anything to the chipboard to prep it for the metallic alcohol ink. Just move on to Step #3...

...which is to start applying your ink. The bottle has a little dropper nozzle so you can apply it straight from the bottle. With the metallic ink you need to really shake up the bottle before you use it, in order to mix the pigment. If the ink stops running try shaking it up again, as there is a little bead inside that can get stuck in the neck. Keep going until you have covered the entire surface. You can use your finger to spread the ink around if it is too heavy in some areas. Now leave it to dry...which shouldn't take too long, but if you stick your finger in it to test it you're going to make a mess!!

And here is the finished product!! It's nice and shiny and ready to go on to your project!

Here is an example of what my talented friend Juli did with her dragonfly and some silver alcohol ink. She just added some pink bling to the tail to finish it off.


And her full layout:


A little note about RANGER ALCOHOL INK: This is meant to be used on non-porous surfaces, like plastic or metal. It is a permanent ink and will stain your clothes (and your countertops and your carpet!!). It comes in a whole bunch of colours and costs $4.50 per 15ml bottle. And it is totally rad!! Try using them to add some colour to an acrylic album, your Hambly transparencies, the Heidi Swapp ghost shapes, the old Making Memories metal words and shapes, etc. etc. Next week I'm going to go over using alcohol inks as they were meant to be used...on all these things and more! See you then!

P.S. For those of you who like the previous Techneek of the Week covering the various distressing techniques that are out there, stay tuned to the Blog for the September Classes update, as I know Juli is working on a neat-o Techniques class where she'll go over all of these with you. Plus you get three rad layouts out of the deal!! Coolio!