Adirondack Alcohol Ink Egg Shell Mosaic

Today's technique was an experiment that ended up going a different direction than I originally thought it would. I had it in my mind that I could ink up the shell, break it into precise little pieces then place each piece of shell where I wanted it to create an image on a card.

NOT!

First off you can't make a shell break how you want it to...at least I couldn't. It just does it's own thing. Then by the time you get some of the pieces broken how you like it's so tedious trying to fit them all together perfectly w/o getting glue EVERYWHERE! Trust me on this!

SOOOO, I sat there for a while and figured out a quicker and MUCH easier way to get a cool egg shell mosaic look in about 1/8th of the time!

Adirondack Alcohol Ink

Egg Shell Mosaic

Supplies:

Egg Shells (cleaned & dried)

Adirondack Alcohol Inks

Chipboard Shapes (cut your own or pre cut)

Adirondack Acrylic Dabbers (to match the AI)

Thick Glue (Aleene's is what I use)

Instructions:

1. Clean and dry the egg shells. We raise our own chickens/eggs so they are very fresh. If your eggs are really fresh you'll need to try and remove as much of the shell membrane as possible. It's not necessary but it saves a bit of frustration later. I used two different types of egg for this example ~ brown chicken egg and a speckled turkey egg.

2. Ink the egg shells with desired colors of Alcohol Ink ~ I used shell pink, raspberry, sunshine yellow and meadow.

3. Paint your chipboard pieces with acrylic dabbers in matching colors (if possible).

4. Apply the egg shells to the chipboard....

Method 1 - I tried applying glue to the chipboard pieces then placing the unbroken shells in sections on the adhesive and pressing the shell (breaking it into smaller pieces) into the glue to secure it to the chipboard.

This didn't work as nicely as I thought it did because some of the bits come off and you can see the chipboard below. It is an o.k. method but it took a bit more time than I liked.

Method 2 - Crush the egg shells into really small bits Alcohol Inked side down. Apply a large amount of glue to the chipboard pieces. Press the chipboard into the pile of egg chips and repeat until the chipboard has been covered completely. Don't worry if some of the egg shell gets turned around so the white side is facing out, we'll take care of that in the next step.

This worked VERY quickly and easily. Keep in mind that the coating of egg shell is much thicker. Not sure if that makes a difference to you or not but if it does then go with method 1.

Either way after the chipboard has been coated let the glue dry completely.

5. If desired or necessary apply another layer of Alcohol Ink to your piece.

6. (Optional) Add accent pieces of shell individually by dabbing glue onto the shell and pressing in place. I did so to add a nice yellow center to my flowers.

Your Egg Shell Mosaic pieces are now ready to be used as desired!

I added mine to a nice Spring-y Card :)

You can see the difference ~ the shell pink flower was created using Method 1, the large raspberry flower and the stem pieces were made with Method 2.

So there you go!

Another fun crafty idea to help ring in Spring!

Tomorrow I'll be starting the Friends Altered Book/Mini Album/Card with the first challenge!