DIY Alcohol Inks with Food Coloring

So it's been a couple years since I updated this blog. Just gonna ignore the elephant in the room that is Covid, 'kay? We'll file it under "Life Happens" and "Good Intentions" and move on...

So I've rediscovered my own creativity and (lol) started organizing the basement (again, lol), and have been working on junk journaling – or at least some sort of hybrid of that and art journals. And since I am still reluctant to go shopping out in the world, and many art supplies that I don't already have are more than I want to spend for something I don't even know I'll be doing a few months from now, I decided to make my own alcohol ink.

I used a set of food coloring I found on Amazon that already had a large number of colors, small perfume mister bottles, and we already had the 91% isopropyl alcohol on hand for 3D printing. (I'll put Amazon links at the end. I am not an affiliate, and earn nothing from the links.)

What I used to make the alcohol inks.

I didn't measure the alcohol, only filled the bottles roughly halfway. The bottles (came in 10-packs, I ordered 2 with the idea that if any were defective I'd have spares, plus extras for whatever) held 10 milliliters. To each of those bottles that now contained about 5mL of alcohol I added 10 drops of food color.

I made a very janky stand to hold the bottles, and carefully labeled each color.

The colors didn't immediately mix, possibly because of the glycerine in the food coloring. Screwing the lid on firmly and keeping my thumb on the cap and giving them all a good shake distributed the color pretty well, but red and pink still have precipitate and need to be shaken before each spritz. (NBD.)

Next I needed to do a color test and see how true and vibrant the colors were. I grabbed a handful of white cardstock and laid them out on my cutting mat to protect the table, and set up more card to catch overspray.

Though I was worried about the red, it's pretty good!
The green is approaching teal, though.

Pink is HOT pink, Grape is like Concord grape juice, and Violet absolutely is.

I think I'd need to add more dye to get true Navy, but it's a nice color.
I didn't expect Black from no more dye than I added and I didn't get it.

Comparing Grass Green to Green, it's easy to see which has more blue, more yellow.
This sheet shows a better representation of Lemon Yellow, and Sunset Yellow is orange.
The Brown color is a nice medium brown.

I am overall quite pleased with this experiment. There are of course many inexpensive alcohol ink sets on Amazon, but the reviews are often mixed. One of the cheaper sets I saw has 16 10mL bottles and 4 of those bottles are white. Not including the white, it has the same number of colors in the same size bottles as the food coloring I bought, for a similar price (the ink is about $1 cheaper as of this writing). BUT, with my 10mL bottles of food coloring, I will be able to make MANY bottles of ink, and I still have some of those spray bottles left over that I can make some custom colors if I want. The only thing I lack that would have made this easier is a pipette to transfer the alcohol into the bottles – that would have been much easier than pouring with a funnel. 

Depending how you count, each bottle of DIY ink cost me between $1.70-2.10 (the higher price factors in the fact that I needed to buy 20 mister bottles to get the 12 I actually needed, the lower price only considers the price per bottle).

Amazon links (not sponsored, no affiliation, no kickbacks – this is what I used):
Mister bottles
Food coloring
Isopropyl alcohol 91%, available from any drugstore

Simple Vertical Hanging DIsplay

I was struggling to find a good way to display headbands for sale, and Pinterest was not particularly helpful. I saw something that was interesting, but also posed its own problem: it needed to hang, itself. But the shape of it made me think of something else: tomato cages.

So that night I ran to the hardware store and got a galvanized steel tomato cage (it was about $5, and sturdier than the usual dark green ones) that had 4 rings. It will sit on the 4th ring as my base, leaving 3 rings to use for display, and the 4 exposed wires at the top (that I trimmed, using a pipe cutting tool) would then be stuck into a styrofoam head to finish the display.

I used a can of spray paint I had from another project to paint it. Some of the wires were welded unevenly into the top ring, and it was going to tear up any table covering I set it on, so I bought some thick batting as a remnant and some clearance ribbon. I cut the batting into strips about 2 inches wide (I only needed 2 strips), and wrapped it around the top (soon to be bottom) ring. Then I wrapped the ribbon around that, securing it with hot glue. It's 2 1/2 inch ribbon, 5 yards, and I used the whole spool. (I did fold the ends over a few times to enclose the raw edges.)

Painted tomato cage, wrapped tier.

The styrofoam head was one that I had, I découpaged it with tissue paper and paper napkins that had a pattern I liked, then painted on a face to give her some personality. After carefully skewering the head onto the wires (it's uneven – that's kind of the nature of styrofoam sometimes, especially when the wires are at angles, as mine were), I put hot glue into the holes to help anchor it in place.

Meet Ophelia

For the display part of it, I ordered wire clips from Amazon. Unlike clothespins, these won't break apart if they're twisted. Plus, I can permanently attach them to my display by bending open one of the loops and closing it back again around the ring of my display. (Clips don't get lost, and I can control the number of items displayed per section, preventing overcrowding.)

Wire clips, pliers wrapped with duct tape (so it didn't mar the coating on the clips).

The clip loops are easily bent with pliers, but I did put some tape on the pliers so the PVC coating on the clips didn't get marred. Once I figured the best number of items per section, I was able to put that number on each section and add the headbands when I was done.

Figuring the best number /section.

The finished display is a little over 4 feet high (50.5", 1.28m), but it's not a floor display – it's intended for a tabletop. On a 30" table, Ophelia will stand 6'8.5" (2m), and the top tier is conveniently at eye-level for most people. The bottom tier I am reserving for kids' headbands.

Filled with inventory.

I suppose my next project could be to find or make a lazy susan sort of thing so the whole thing can rotate, but I have concerns that would make it tippy if someone tried to spin it too fast. Unless I am prepared to anchor it to the spinner (making it less portable), I think I'll leave it as-is, and put it on a corner of a table.

Ophelia, modelling.

The open space under her neck will be used to hang signage with pricing. It will be at eye level for most people and done with the same typeface that I use for business cards and other booth signage. I have some acid-green tulle that I'll use to hang it with.

I'm hugely pleased with the way this turned out, and I hope this serves as inspiration for you, if you have vertical display issues for small items.

Inexpensive Library Table

When we bought our house, we were excited about the formal living room. Not because we're formal people, but because the space was perfect for a home library. We're both bibliophiles, and have a ton of bookcases. We bought more...

Because the room was sizable, we decided to make a library table using six short bookcases (two rows of three set back-to-back) with a furniture-grade plywood top, and trimmed out to look like a single, sizable, piece of furniture. The whole thing sits on a rug that protects the hardwood floor and breaks up all the woodgrain, floor to (laminate) bookcases. We bought the bookcases (furniture-in-a-box; I think the manufacturer is Sauder) on sale at Meijer as part of their back to school sale, so if you're thinking of trying this, that's a good time to buy them. 

The top of the table is made from a sheet of plywood, cut to size and stacked. A single layer didn't give us the height we needed to add trim and have the trim be high enough to get books off the top shelf.

We used that grippy shelf/drawer liner stuff to keep the plywood from sliding on the tops of the bookcases. I used green wood stain on the plywood, a color close to one of the shades of green in the rug. (The room also has one green wall.)

Two coats of Minwax Express Color in Emerald, much prettier in person.

Once the top was finished, the trim was stained. I used Minwax PolyShades hoping to do it all in one shot -- don't be lazy; I hate that crap and won't ever use it again. Use stain, then seal it with polyurethane. PolyShades is nearly impossible to apply evenly. ANYway, we found trim that had a leaf motif, an excellent complement to both the green colors in the room, and the leaves in the rug. The trim was mitred to fit perfectly onto the table surface, and nailed into the plywood. (If we had to, the table surface can be lifted off of the bookcases, but it would take several people to do it -- it's heavy!)

First coat of poly/stain. We found the trim at Home Depot.

The finished table, exactly the right height for looking something up in the big unabridged dictionary, is my pride and joy. It's the first thing I see when I come downstairs in the morning, and it still gives me a bit of a rush.

Completed table, with the trim stained to closely match the color of the laminate bookcases.

I call it an "inexpensive library table" only in comparison to something that was made in a single piece and out of wood instead of particle board. I honestly don't remember exactly what we paid for each one, but it was probably around $20 each on sale (this was two years ago), so "inexpensive" is highly relative. If you're thinking of picking them up one at a time, as finances allow, remember that availability may change, styles may be discontinued, etc. 

Also, if you're a serious bibliophile and need to keep track of your collection, I highly recommend LibraryThing, an online book cataloging website. It's fantastic!