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Dye or alcohol inks are just that- an ink that is made with alcohol as the solvent, and this type of ink does not lie on top of the clay- rather, it sinks in and actually transforms the color of whatever it touches. A great tool for creating faux stone or seaglass, for mixing into translucent clay to make really nice colors that light will shine through, and other special effects when you would want the dying effect. One little thing we forgot to say- sometimes, especially if you want to avoid making a huge mess, you might want to put some ink on your project and let the alcohol evaporate for a couple of minutes. We demonstrate this in our video next week. If you don’t choose to do this, you will get ink all over your hands and it does temporarily dye your skin. This also produces more waste than if you let it dry for a minute or two. This is NOT the type of ink you would use to stamp with or create an image, because this ink bleeds or seeps away from where you put it.

You would use pigment ink, which we talked about last time (episode 4) for stamping or creating images on the clay.

Pinata and Ranger are two brands we have used. The Pinata inks tend to be bright bold colors, while Ranger carries inks in earthy muted tones (the Adirondack series is what I’m referring to.) Both are great to work with, it just depends on what colors and effects you are looking for.

For News today, we want you to know that in our next podcast on August 24th, we will have 4 interviews with members of the National Polymer Clay Guild www.npcg.org, who will be discussing their involvement in the NPCG’s conference, called Synergy, next February in Baltimore MD. So far we have talked to Seth Lee and Sarah Shriver, and they have had some wonderful things to say, so you won’t want to miss it.

We also received a book from Kalmbach Publishing at the CHA show, and we want to tell you about it. It is called Polymer Pizzazz, and it has the Best of Bead & Button magazine’s articles on working with polymer clay in jewelry projects. It is a very nicely done book with step-by-step instructions. If you are good at following written directions, you will enjoy this book very much. If you need a little more direction, or are very new to polymer clay, some of the projects might be a little challenging. However the great thing is that we have a forum set up especially for our listeners, so if you get into a bind while trying a new technique or can’t figure out written directions, you can always ask in the forum and someone, either Ilysa or Kira, or one of our experienced forum moderators, will give you some guidance.

Thanks for listening! We have put together a great full length tutorial video on using dye inks. Here is a link to purchase our full length project tutorial video showing how to use dye inks and translucent clay to make two votive candle holders- two whole projects in one full length video, and lessons on simple caning too! A great value! Or check out our subscriptions. The Companion Kit to make the projects will be available in our shop this weekend.

Download:

Here’s a link to the book we talked about today:

And here are a few other good ones:

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