You'll never believe what she did with alcohol inks....

Congratulations, my fellow Unies, on making it here to Growing in Unity by Shannon Edwards. Folks, I'm getting out of my comfort zone this week, and I'm going all mixed media using distress style stamps from SMAK and a few other favorites. I promise you we will have some fun this week with some ridiculously funny, sometimes messy, and always amazing projects, if I do say so myself.  Not to toot my own horn here, but *toot toot* this first project is probably the coolest thing I've ever made. 

If you know me or have followed my work on the Show and Tell, you know how much I love a sassy lady stamp.  For my first day, I went all kinds of sassy lady crazy and made a set of coasters!

Here's how to make them and exactly what I used.

• Travertine Tiles
• Tim Holtz alcohol inks in:
• silver 
• gold
• purple twilight
• eggplant
• lettuce
• sunset orange
• sunshine yellow
• cranberry
• Alcohol ink mixitive or rubbing alcohol
• Tim Holtz felt applicator and handle
• Staz-on Black ink
• DecoARt DuraClear Satin Varnish
• Stick-on cork circles for the feet

Take your travertine tiles and put a few dots of the alcohol inks you'd like to mix on the tile randomly.  They can touch and overlap just fine.  Then, take one of the metallics, gold or silver, and put it on the applicator with some mixative.  Bounce the handle up and down on the tile, twisting it until the ink gets a marbleized feel.  If you want to add a few drops more of color, go for it! Blend until you like the look.  Make sure you get the edges too.

Once they dry, ink up your sassiest lady in a heavy coating of Staz-on Black ink.  I was surprised how clearly they stamped out on the tiles.  They were nice and smooth, probably because of the deeply etched red rubber of the stamps! ;-)  Once the gals and the sentiments were stamped, I let them dry for probably 20 minutes, and put on a thin layer of varnish just to seal them in and give them a little bit of a shine.  Finally, I stuck a cork circle on each of the corners once the varnish was dry. Now I have classy, sassy ladies to hold my Diet Coke or whatever other beverage I'd like to indulge in.  Here are the up close pics of these wonders.

Honestly, you MUST try this technique.  Even if you want to switch out sassy ladies for, I don't know, snowflakes or flowers or owls, or whatever else you might be into.  Just try.  This technique is so much easier than it looks

Here are all the kits I used for these coasters, including the sentiments

That sucks

Damn Girl

Love that Face

Let it Go

Be Fearless

Are you going to try this out, or which is your favorite gal coaster?Don't forget to leave a comment below to be entered in for a chance at winning 25 beautiful stamps from Unity Stamp Co!