Alcohol ink earrings are my latest craft project on YouTube.

I’ve based my alcohol ink earrings project on an original technique I developed for a 2016 YouTube tutorial that has been watched by thousands of people.

Since I first showed my own alcohol ink technique with aluminum foil, lots of people have copied it, so I’m guessing it was a good idea!

Back when I first did it, I used my alcohol ink paintings on foil to make pendants.

This time, I have made alcohol ink earrings instead.

And I have changed the technique a bit by using something different to aluminum foil to drip the alcohol inks onto.

You can see the full tutorial here on YouTube.

Making these alcohol ink earrings is perfect for people who believe they are ‘hopeless’ at art and crafts.

So many people have told me how they wish they were creative and it always makes me sad that they believe they aren’t.

And over the years, I have developed and shared many abstract painting techniques to encourage people to lose their fear of ‘getting it wrong’.

We are so easily put off by people who do art ‘properly’. The people who can draw effortlessly with perfect perspective and proportions.

The people who exhibit their work and sell it with no problem.

That’s them – not us, right? But it does not mean we can’t get lost for a morning with a packet of Sharpies and a pad of paper.

Or a set of alcohol inks and some Yupo paper!

There is so much more to art than producing ‘perfect’ work to please others.

How about having fun and pleasing yourself? And that is what this tutorial is all about.

The artwork for these alcohol ink earrings is not as hard to create as you might think.

Watch the video and you will see exactly what I mean. All you need to do is choose the colors and drip them into each other, or alongside each other and watch the magic.

But you need to do it on a non-porous substrate like I use in my tutorial.

Alcohol inks are your ticket to unlocking your creativity if it is still locked up behind negative beliefs.

There a couple of things you need to know about alcohol inks before you jump in and buy a truck load to make alcohol ink earrings.

First and most important – you need to wear rubber gloves when using them. They stain skin and it’s hard to get off.

You’ll also need very effective ventilation. I know some people don’t bother, but if I don’t have air flowing through while I’m using the inks, I get a headache.

It’s especially important if you are spritzing with alcohol ink blending solution as well.

I use 99% rubbing alcohol as a blender and I only use it by a wide open window.

You’ll also need to cover any surfaces that you don’t want to get stained.

And finally, the inks are quite expensive – upwards of £3.50 for a 10ml bottle. Most start at around £4 now but you can buy sets.

As long as you are sensible, alcohol inks are brilliant to use and will go a long way.

However, if for any reason you don’t want to experiment with these inks, or you can’t get hold of any quickly but want to make earrings, don’t worry – I have free printables for you!

As I explain i the tutorial, my intention was to scan all my alcohol ink paintings and share them with you to print off.

But I was so enthusiastic about chopping them up to make my earrings, I forgot to scan them while they were still in one piece.

So I ended up scanning the uncut parts. This is what you can get over on my Google Drive.

If you click the Google Drive link above, you will go straight to the folder with all eight full resolution images with no stamp on the front.

As with all my free printables, there are a few terms and conditions to using them and you can read about them here.

You can also visit my free printables link page to see what other free printables are available.

And if you fancy having a go at another easy art technique using other art mediums…

…you might enjoy making ‘fabric’ from brown parcel paper, the kind we wrap parcels in to post.

This is another way of being creative that I used to teach in my workshops going back a few years and it’s a lot of fun to try out.

You can’t get this ‘wrong’ either.

If you want to see more about this, you can visit the tutorial I did back in 2014 on Instructables. Or visit my other website where I also wrote about this.

However you decide to create art for your earrings, you will need to punch holes in them to put the earring wires through.

Many people have contacted me about the Crop-o-Dile tool I use in my videos to ask where they can get one.

You can read my Amazon Affiliate policy here.

And finally – how to get standardised earring shapes when cutting multiple layers like I did in the video.

To overcome the problem of making lots of earring bases in layered card and then cutting the same shape out of your artwork, I have created a template (as seen in the video).

If you want a set of my Earring templates, get in touch via the contact form on this website and I will let you know how you can get them.

I think that about wraps things up for this post. Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy the free printables.

You might want to subscribe to this website and to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss the free stuff coming up this sumer.

I will be back again very soon with a look back at some of the easy art techniques I have been using for many years to create paper beads and other jewelry from my own paintings.

And if you don’t want to get covered in paint, then you can simply download the scans of my artwork and print them off to use in your crafts.

Meanwhile, have lots of fun making the alcohol ink earrings and see you again very soon.