We all know the Tim Holtz blending solution for using with alcohol inks- and we all know its around a fiver for a 57ml bottle. A while back, some ladies were talking on SCS about using Rubbing Alcohol instead, and Kyla mentioned this stuff a few days ago,which reminded me about it. I bought some via E-bay, although you are supposed to be able to get it from chemists, but I just got blank looks when I asked. There seems to be two strengths available, 70% and 90%. The 70% costs around a fiver for 500ml- so roughly 10 times the amount for the same price. The actual name of it is Isopropyl Alcohol, and it is one of the ingredients in Tims blending solution, the other two are other solvents. But, does it work? Actually, it works extremely well, these two pieces I did below, one with blending solution, one with the rubbing alcohol.I used the 70% one, by the way.Those of us of a certain age will remember the old 'Taste test' adverts between butters and margarine,so this pic uses that old standard- can you tell which is which?
The colours are slightly different, but only because its impossible to get the same blend on a felt twice!
Both times I used Stream, Cranberry and Terracotta inks.
Wider shot with the respective blenders behind them. I used an old hair dye bottle (heaven knows I get enough of them) to put the Isopropyl in.
I was also interested to see if it would work as a blender with Alcohol based pens- Promarkers, for instance. In short, the answer is no, it doesn't. But I did discover that you can get some interesting effects with it.
You can see where I tried blending two colours together- it removes the ink rather than blends it. So then I tried stamping with it,onto a patch of card coloured with Promarker, and that does work. It removes the colour to give you a ghost like image.
I made a pad from a sheet of kitchen roll,then stamped the butterfly on it and then onto the Promarker coloured bit of card. If you enlarge the picture you will see the result a bit better, I think. By the way, it does smell a bit stronger than Blending Solution, but not much, just in case that is an issue for anyone.
