Tutorial: Alcohol Ink Crackled Metal Pendants {part 2}

I have been doing a little more experimenting and have a little bit of info for you-

I decided to play a bit with aluminum and see if the techniques from yesterday’s tutorial worked the same on different metal.  Yes, it does work.  The type of metal does not seem to matter.  What does matter is that you shouldn’t be as gung ho with your embossing as I was with mine.  Sometimes when I run stuff in Texture Fades through my die cutting machine I back it up and do it twice.  I don’t know why, I know that I don’t need to.  But something in me thinks that if it impresses great once, imagine how good it will look twice?  Or, uh, three times.  Guess what, once works, trust me.  Texture Fades can actually cut through thin aluminum if you run them through too much (see above).  Since I was mainly experimenting anyway, I just put some scotch tape on the back to hold down the pieces and used them as is.  Trust me though, especially if you are making your own blanks like I did here, don’t ruin them by over embossing.  Once works.

Okay, so the big thing I need to tell you. . . As I was linking products in the tutorial yesterday I noticed that Matte Accents was a little hard to find online.  Most of my favorite go-to online stores didn’t have it.  I checked Ranger’s site and was a little stumped to see it wasn’t even listed.  I emailed Tim and asked what was up.

Matte Accents has been discontinued!  But, not to fear.  I did another test just to be sure and Glossy Accents does indeed do the same thing as Matte Accents in this technique.  The samples above are done with Glossy.  I do think it is a bit shinier but that is okay, it still looks cool!  But, if you love Matte Accents like I do, you will want to snatch it up when you find it and build yourself a nice stash of it.

Okay, so how about the source of my aluminum?  The trash can.  Luckily for me, I have a never ending supply of these in my house thanks to my insane addiction to Dr. Pepper.  Just be careful cutting the can open, the aluminum is very, very sharp! (wink)