Alcohol Ink and Plastic Wrap Flower Vase

This is now my third project using plastic wrap to apply alcohol ink to glass. My first attempt was a decorative wine bottle from the dollar store. Then, I applied it to some altar candles to try out a smoother surface. It creates a neat crinkled look, but it takes a bit of fiddling to get the surface completely covered and looking good. Hopefully, I've got the process pretty much down pat because when I saw this perfectly smooth cylinder vase, I totally wanted to plastic wrap it.

I grabbed my inks and a craft mat (or two) to get started. Then I tore off a piece of plastic wrap that was a bit bigger than my vase. I've tried a couple brands of plastic wrap and haven't noticed any difference in the result yet.

I chose ink colors that were close to each other on the color wheel so they wouldn't turn brown when they mixed together. I dripped 4 or 5 dots of each color onto an area roughly the size of my vase.

Then I set the vase down on the edge of the ink and rolled it onto the wrap until the plastic wrap was wound around the vase. I then set it aside for a few minutes to dry a bit so the color wouldn't all pull off of the vase when I removed the plastic.

After probably about 10 minutes, I removed the plastic. The colors were pretty light and didn't cover the whole vase.

I knew I wanted to get the vase more coverage, get the colors a bit darker, and try to get a bit more texture to appear, so I dripped some more of the same colors onto the same plastic wrap.

This time, I intentionally rolled it onto the vase wonky. I wanted it to be crooked and a bit crinkly. Then I unrolled it right away and reapplied the plastic in a different location to transfer as much of the ink onto the vase as possible before it dried up. I would usually apply about 3 times each time I added ink to the plastic as I worked my way around the vase trying to add color to places that were light or bare.

Once it was mostly covered, I then applied a dot or two of ink to the plastic to provide contrast to make the design a bit more interesting. With my color choices that usually ended up being pink or dark blue.

Once I was satisfied with the look of it, I set it aside to dry for a few minutes. If you plan to handle your vase a lot or store it near any alcohol based liquids (like hairspray, perfume, etc...) you'll want to seal your alcohol ink masterpieces. On glass, you'll want to use a glossy sealer like glossy mod podge or glossy acrylic spray. If you plan to use it only as decoration and don't plan to handle it much, it may not even need to be sealed, but when in doubt, seal it.

These projects with plastic wrap have been such a fun experiment in alcohol ink. I think they turn out looking really cool in person, but they are a bit difficult to photograph. I hope these projects have inspired you to try it out!