Friday, February 6, 2015

Recycling Aluminum for Card Making



 Instructions at the bottom.























What you'll need.

Clean aluminum cans
Scissors with sharp points
Alcohol ink
Felt Ink Applicators
Cuttlebug embosser or any other embossing machine (plus plates)
Embossing folders
Paper towels
Aluminum foil or silicone craft sheets
Paper trimmer

Here’s how to do it.

Poke two holes in the side of an aluminum can with sharp pointed scissors as shown.
Carefully cut around the bottom of the can side and the top of the can side. This will remove the top and bottom of the can and leave you with an open cylinder
Cut the cylinder from top to bottom as shown. This will give you a long rectangle of raw aluminum.
Using a paper trimmer, trim the rough edges away from the long sides of the rectangle. Trim the two short sides of the rectangle. This will give you a piece measuring 8” x 3 ¼”.
For my cards, I cut this piece in half to yield two 4” x 3 ¼” pieces. (side benefit – this sharpens the blade of my cutter!)
Place the aluminum inside an embossing folder. Be sure to put the blank side of the aluminum facing the manufactures mark on the folder as shown.
Lay down a piece of aluminum foil or a craft sheet under your paper towel work surface. Alcohol ink will leave a permanent stain on your work surface so be sure to protect it. Also if you wish, you can wear gloves to protect from staining your fingers.
Squeeze a little alcohol ink onto the felt applicator. Rub the entire surface of the embossed aluminum to make a base coat.
Add more ink to the same pad and start dabbing the ink here and there onto the base coat.
Add drops of ink right from the bottle here and there and let it puddle. The ink will react in different ways to the texture of the design and to the dryness of the underlying layer of ink.
Experiment with the inks until you like the color placement. You can also come back in and use the applicator to “blend” the colors a bit although the object is to make the colors as freeform as possible.

This is addictive and fun and a great way to recycle aluminum!
Enjoy.