DIY Alcohol Ink

So after a week of talking about alcohol inks, have you found yourself diving in and trying a few ideas you saw? And now, are there any alcohol ink colors you wish you had, but haven’t been able to find or don’t want to buy a pack of 3 or 9 just to get them? Do you find them expensive or hard to find? Well, we do have an option–making our own!

The things you need to make your own alcohol inks are a permanent dye color source and rubbing alcohol. There are two primary color sources available to pretty much everyone–home fabric dyes such as Rit, or permanent markers like Sharpies. I haven’t tried either, but I have heard that the ones made with Sharpies are very, well, pungent. That chemical marker smell will fill the air. Not sure that’s a good thing, but if you have  lot of permanent markers you don’t really use, it would be a way to give them a purpose.  However, from the research I’ve done, it seems that the Sharpie colors are more vibrant than those made with the fabric dyes when using them on polymer clay. Which was a little surprising. Not surprising is that the colors are more vibrant on paper than on polymer. But as I haven’t tried it (yet!) myself, I can only offer the online instructions I found that seemed most useful and let you decide.

This video uses the permanent marker method:

Here is a page on creating alcohol inks with markers if you aren’t into watching videos.

As for alcohol inks with fabric dyes, here is the best of them that I found. It’s a short video by Cindy Lietz of Polymer Clay Tutor, so it’s definitely geared towards polymer clay use.

You may also find some instruction about making alcohol ink with food coloring or Kool-aid, but keep in mind that the color needs to adhere to polymer. Most food dyes  cling to proteins but will not stain–certainly not in any permanent fashion–synthetic materials like plastics. So you need permanent dyes that will become permanent on synthetics and non-porous surfaces.

So as far as I know, permanent markers and fabric dyes are your best bet for easy to find alcohol colorants. And they’re cheap. That is always a plus!