How To Make Your Own Alcohol Ink

Alcohol ink is readily available and can be bought in bottles, but is also offered in fill-able pens and markers.

The last ones are ideal for writing, coloring, drawing, precision, and detailed work.

It is also recommended to have an alcohol blending solution handy to dilute and blend the colors and give them a lighter and softer look. The solution can also be used for cleaning off the ink from the non-porous surfaces.

You can easily make your own alcohol ink, but it can happen that the home-made ink doesn't stick too well to the non-porous surfaces and the colors may be a little dull. It is worth giving it a try though, because making your own is a lot cheaper.

You will need at least 90% rubbing alcohol and fabric dye. Try not to use a lower strength of rubbing alcohol, since it will leave the ink, and hence the colors, grainy.

Small jars like those from baby food and black film canisters are ideal for mixing and storing the ink.

The right combination of rubbing alcohol and dye is achieved by mixing 1/4 of dye with 3/4 of rubbing alcohol.

Shake it well until few grains are left or all the grains are dissolved. Another option is to mix half a cup of isopropyl alcohol with 2 teaspoons of liquid dye and shake that up well.

One more tip; don't use rubber stamps. They have the tendency to dry out and become unusable due to the alcohol.

Mixing your own ink may not be a success the first several times, but eventually you will get the hang of it and pass with flying colors!