Friday 26 February 2016

Alcohol Ink Chart & Storage



I thought I'd share my alcohol storage and colour chart in case it helps anyone.
Firstly I use Ranger's Adirondack alcohol inks and store them in this A4, plastic box which you can easily get, dead cheap from places like The Range or Hobbycraft, etc
There's enough room for the entire collection of inks, a blending tool, felts, a bottle of blending solution, a mini-mister, cotton-buds and the kitchen sink.
I haven't bothered with colour-coding the lids as it's quite easy to find the colour I need. I divide mine into Mixatives, Pinks & Purples, Greens & Browns, Yellows & Oranges... you get the idea.



There is a blank, downloadable colour chart on the Rangers website here. However, if you want to print it out on Yupo, which will give you best result, the chances are that your printer ink will never dry and just smudge, so I created my own on an A4 sheet of the 110gsm version & simply used a rule & black Sharpie to draw my lines. By doing it this way I found that when I dripped 1 drop of ink in each section, the Sharpie somehow created a barrier and the ink didn't spread into the next colour segment.



I've stuck the colour chart on the inside of my lid.
The beauty of a Yupo colour chart is that you can see the true colours and have a constant reminder of how a colour reacts, eg... Cool Peri has a pink surround, Shell Pink a cream one.






9 comments:

cuilliesocks said...

Hi Jane, thanks for these tips and that looks a good storage solution, Kate x

Craft-E-Place said...

Great idea and brilliant advice ... I just need pay day to arrive so that I can order more inks!
Elaine

cindybearj said...

Great idea. I didn't know what to do with my inks. This reminds me of a box of Russell Stover candy that has the "candy map" on the box...lol!

creatingincolors said...

Great timing! I'm planning to make swatches of my alcohol inks in the next few days. Love the tip on the Yupo and the sharpie, plus you've shown storage doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Thanks!

Julie said...

This is great Jane - going to make a chart when my new inks arrive!!x

Johanna said...

I went to the Container Store and bought plastic holders for multiple Nail Polish. They will display the inks at a slant and you can see what you have. When they are upright, you can't tell, but with your chart, I know that helps you. I also put little cut outs of each color in the same cubicle. Then I can tell at a glance.

Linda meunier said...

What do you mean by an a4 container? I love this idea but do not have those stores near me. Is there a name for these?

Eileen Bergen said...

Great tips! Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Wow... so many colours are so close to each other as to be the same.. honeycomb and butterscotch are almost identical and caramel isn't far off.
Lettuce and oregano, meadow and pesto...

This is a great chart to use to know what NOT to buy.

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