Little Pieces of Me

This one is short - and hopefully sweet... You may have seen these – coasters made from ceramic tiles decorated with alcohol inks. They are all over Pinterest and a search with Google Images shows more examples than is comfortable. I saw the original tutorial here:  http://52weeksproject.com/post/29302076841/guest-post-alcohol-ink-dyed-coasters . And I thought it would be a fun little "make" for house gifts around Christmas time. Besides, I had all the alcohol inks left over from updating my kitchen back splash last year. Well, Christmas came and went and it was well into January before I actually got around to having a go. A quick make? Not for me. They took way longer than I expected. There is a lot of waiting around to see what happens, during which time you get to inhale alcohol fumes. And not the good kind either. And then inevitably you have to wash the ink off the tile when the result is ugly and try again. And wait again. I found these hard to make look good! ...

I actually didn't plan to blog about this, but the technique was so effective, I thought I'd share it after all... While working on the red jacket (previous post) I had several side projects going on - something to do when I got tired of sewing all those dots. One of these was working out a way to brighten up the backsplash in the kitchen. Mark and I had the kitchen redone last year. I love the counter-top stone we chose, which went so well with the existing cabinet. But I never loved the backsplash tile. It looked very good, completely appropriate, and it was the best choice available. It has an interesting detail band with stone and glass mosaics,  but it just isn't me. I wanted bright colours, but apparently that just wasn't in style (last year). Here's what it looked like. But then I was in Rona or Lowes or something the other day and what are they showing in the tile department? Colour. Lots of it. Which just made me go home and look at the backspla...