My muse was with me and so after dinner the night before last, I sat down to alter some dominoes the other night. My younger son approached me and asked what I was doing. I explained how I was using alcohol inks to put color onto the back and sides of the dominoes. I told him how I liked that the colors are not completely predictable.
My son asked if he could make some. So with my supervision he began making these dominoes. The coolest thing he did was when I was washing my hands he took it upon himself to start a new set. He combined a blue with a red color and gold and those dominoes came out with a jewel-tone purple with gold. They are beautiful! (Those are the ones in the top row of the first scan on this blog entry.)
We ended up spending two hours on this project and did this instead of me surfing the Internet and watching television. Then the next morning my younger son woke up asking to make more. I let him make some more with my supervision, with him totally in control, until he wanted to stop.
I plan to further embellish these dominoes.
So far I did try to rubber stamp with black Staz On ink on top of these, but the two I made did not come out well. The black is not very dark, not dark enough. I wonder if the issue is that my ink pad is not as 'juicy' as it needs to be? I need to figure this out.
I could also collage some bits on top of these colored backgrounds.
I colored the sides so that I would not have to have Krylon gold leafing pen be the color for the sides. I was not sure that I wanted so much gold on the edges.
I also used silver in some of these. I probably should buy a silver leafing pen by Krylon, if they make one, so that I could put silver on the edges if I wanted.
The trickiest part of doing this was to color the sides and not have my fingers lift off too much of the ink. What I did was do the top surfaces, let it dry a bit, then hold the un-inked sides and color two edge sides. Then I let that dry a bit then hold the inked edges and color the last two uncolored edges. It was tricky and I did end up with ink on my fingers in the end.
If I make these into charms for necklaces I plan to drill holes into them after the rest is completed. I only did it that way as I had not coordinated with my husband ahead of time to have him drill everything ahead of time.
I could also use a bead on the top to act as the thing to put the string through.
The impetus for doing these right now is that I signed up for an altered domino swap on Swap-bot last week. I also see there is an upcoming swap for an altered domino charm which I may or may not choose to participate in.
Products used:
The earth toned color alcohol inks are by Ranger in the Tim Holtz line. I own only three of those inks, my set calls the colors eggplant (purple), lettuce (green), and cranberry (a burgundy red color). I find these at A.C. Moore and Michael's Craft store and buy them with the weekly discount coupon that is published in the newspaper sales flyer and/or online. They are also sold at my local rubber stamp store for full price.
The silver and gold 'alcohol ink mixatives' colors are by Ranger, sold in a set togeher. I find these at A.C. Moore and Michael's Craft store and buy them with the weekly discount coupon that is published in the newspaper sales flyer and/or online. They are also sold at my local rubber stamp store for full price.
I also used bright red (Santa Fe red), bright orange (Calabaza Orange), a yellow (Tangerine), baja blue and sapphire blue alcohol inks by Jacquard. The label also identifies these products as "Susan Pickering Rothamel signature line Pinata Color". I find the Jacquard alcohol inks only at a local rubber stamp store, they are sold individually for $3.50 each, so you can pick and choose how many colors you want, or if you want just a couple of colors that are very different than the inks that you already own. They also sell sets of Pinata alcohol inks but the price was pretty much the same as buying them individually.
I found the Jacquard colors went on thicker and took longer to dry. The Ranger inks seemed to go on thinner and were not as tacky when wet, and dried very quickly.
I did not use blending solution in this project.
Technorati Tags: altered dominoes, domino charm, altered art, swap-bot.
2 comments:
Christine,
The colors are just gorgeous! I've never heard of altered dominoes. What kind of dominoes do you use? Are those the back sides? It looks like they are smooth--all of my dominoes have indentations for the numbers. I don't see how the ink sticks.
Karen thanks for leaving a comment.
Yes, this is the back side. I also colored the sides with the alcohol ink.
The color 'stick' because this is a product called "alcohol ink" which adheres to both plastic and metal.
THese dominoes are that white colored resin--plastic.
The other side which I didn't scan has the indented dots for the numbers. I did not alter/color the dot sides as the ink is expensive and I saw no point in doing that. Although my son did do some at his insistance. The risk too of altering the back side is that you have to lay it down on the front side which is still wet and trying to dry, so it risks 'messing up' the front.
Due to the nature of the way you use the alcohol inks you can't get the same exact colors twice in a row, in most cases, as we used more than one color (often 3 colors were used) and as you use them the colors blend and change. For example it may start off very blue but over time melds with the yellow and ends up looking more green.
To read the full technique check the Ranger (brand of alcohol ink) website. Look for directions on the "polished stone" method of using alcohol inks.
You can also just do a google search on "alter dominoes" or any variation of that keyword.
If you go to Google's image search and input "altered dominoes" you will see other people's altered domino projects.
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