HOW TO PAINT WITH SHARPIES AND ALCOHOL
MATERIALS
Sharpies, various colors
91% Rubbing Alcohol, not the 70%**
4.25 x 4.25 inch ceramic tiles (or whatever size you want!)
Small paint brush (you could also use a dropper or a small straw)
Krylon UV Resistant Clear Acrylic Coating
**Important Note: When I went to get my supplies, I saw that there is 91% alcohol and there is 70% rubbing alcohol. I got the 70% alcohol. I did that purposely because I am going to be using this method with a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds and I was worried about the smell of alcohol. Well, the 70% was a total bust. I started over with the 91% and all was right with the crafting world. And there was no difference to me in the smell.
INSTRUCTIONS
Step 1: Clean off your tiles. I bought my tiles from Home Depot for less than a dollar each. They had what I can only assume is a protective strip of netting on them that I removed. Dry the tiles well.
Step 2: Color your tile with coordinating Sharpie colors. Don’t be scared, they look really bad until you put the alcohol on them. You can color small areas with different colors as in the tile below, or you can cover a greater amount of area with each color. Totally up to you!
Step 3: With your paint brush, small straw or dropper, drop small amounts (about dime size) of the alcohol onto the colored tile. You’ll almost immediately see the alcohol start to blur the colors. I sort of concentrated on the areas where the colors met so that those lines would be well blurred. After dropping some alcohol on random spots on the tile, stop and look at the tile. Do you see spots that need a droplet? Add one. BUT! Don’t add too much alcohol to the tile. I’ll show you why in a minute.
Step 4: When you are happy with the amount of blurring from the alcohol, you can stop and let the tile dry. OR, you can be a nosy artist like me and dab at the colors with a paint brush. Or, you can be like my daughter and actually pull the paint brush through the colors, which I thought was going to totally ruin the whole thing! But, it didn’t. Her tile came out different than the others, but very cool! See below:
If you’re wondering, she used red, yellow and purple sharpies for this tile. I can’t lie. I watched her making it and I was like, “Oh my God, that is going to be so bad and I’m going to have to pretend to like it when she’s done”. But guess what? It’s probably my favorite! It’s a completely different look than mine. Her colors are a little more muted whereas mine are more in your face. That sentence has so many meanings
Important Note: You must let your tiles dry when you are done adding your alcohol and dabbing at them with your paint brush, if you chose to dab at them with a paint brush. Give them a good 30 minutes and then go look at them. Did they come out weird with a weird sort of washed out spot where you can see the lines from your Sharpie? Don’t worry, I did that, too. I’m pretty sure it means you added too much alcohol (too much alcohol is bad for everything). But it’s an easy fix! Grab your Sharpies and add some more color then add a little more alcohol to get the blurring going again. (This is not what you should do if you have added to much alcohol to your body. Generally, adding more alcohol to a problem that was caused by too much alcohol is never a good thing. Except when we’re talking about painting tiles).
Step 5: The last step in this process is to seal the tiles. These are way to delicate unsealed to use as anything other than something pretty to look at it.
All in all, this craft is super easy, especially since I’ve now shown you what mistakes to avoid! You’re welcome! And they are definitely high impact.
So, now you’ve made four super cool tiles, what are going to do with them? You can make coasters or tile a bench or a mirror or frame them and hang them as art. I think coasters are the best implementation. Just pop a piece of felt on the bottom with some hot glue and call it a day! As for me, these tiles were a practice round for another project that I will be posting about soon!
If you’re totally not in the mood to make tiles, but you really want to have some similar, funky coasters, check out these options from Etsy:
