Tim Holtz Video for Alcohol Ink Pens-CHA Winter 2009

Hi everyone!! Well, I’m not quite “back to normal” yet, but I’m almost there. So, here’s the first video I promised you. This is the super talented Tim Holtz of Ranger Inc. For those who may have been held hostage in a cave far, far away from crafting civilization for the last several years & haven’t heard of Tim, he’s the inventor of the entire “Distress” line (Distress Inks & embossing powders, Distress Stickles and of course, all the alcohol inks). He also has his own product line consisting of wonderfully helpful tools, stamps, storage, the much loved Grungeboard (and now there is Grunge paper that actually feeds thru a printer!!!) & embellishments, all under his “Tim Holtz idea-ology” line. He’s also authored some books, as well as DVDs. Not to mention, he is the innovator of the entire “grunge” & free-handed stamping & inking techniques. To top it all off, he’s a great & patient teacher & a genuinely nice person.

Here in this demo he is showing how his new refillable pens for the alcohol inks work. I love these pens!! They come empty, with 2 different sizes of brush tips on either end. You can fill them with any color of alcohol ink, or the Alcohol Blending Solution. He stressed several times that when you fill them, tip the alcohol ink bottle into the chamber (after carefully removing the brush tip end by the METAL part) & then fill it to the count of five, with no pauses or “Mississippi” in-between (now don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, as most of us were taught to count out seconds as: “1-Mississippi, 2-Mississipi…”!). Tim said NOT to do that or we’ll overfill the pens. He said while squeezing the alcohol ink bottle, just count out: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5” and that’s it. Oh, and be sure to only pull off ONE tip at a time when you’re filling the pens, because if you pull them both out, the ink will just fall out the bottom! So, once you’ve squeezed 5 seconds worth of alcohol ink into the pen’s chamber, put the tip back on & leave the pen lying down horizontally for 5 minutes & after that, you’re ready to start using the pen!!! He also suggested that you color the white band around the pen with the color of alcohol ink you filled it with. You can also fill one of the empty pens with Alcohol Blending Solution, which I LOVE, because I feel it will be so much less wasteful & I know I’ll have much better control over the solution. Of course, that’s the same way I feel about filling the pens with alcohol inks—less messy, easier to control, plus now we can use the finer tip of the brush & can actually write a bit with them!!! WOO HOO!!! You can NOT mix colors within the pen; each pen needs to house one color only, so if I don’t plan to buy a pen for each color of alcohol ink I have, then instead, I’ll just get them for the darker shades of each color family, because I can them lighten the color using the blending solution!!

Oh and guess what??? I haven’t even mentioned there are several new colors coming out for the alcohol inks!!! Ohhhhh, they’re so pretty, especially the “Brights” (wait until you see this bright Pink---it’s sooooo hot!!).



Well, that’s my CHA video demo and product information for the day. Tune in tomorrow for more fun & exciting news!! Until then, have a WONDERFUL & CREATIVE crafting day!!