Alcohol Ink Tinted Skinner Blend Mica Shift Tutorial

In this tutorial I'll show you how to create a beautiful Skinner Blend Mica Shift and a Mica Smash using alcohol ink tinted polymer clay.

Tinting your metallic clays with alcohol inks opens up a huge range of vibrant color options for your mica shifts, without reducing the mica content of the clay. It's a simple technique that can be used to add your own favorite color combinations to any project.

You will need the following supplies:

Pearl white and silver Premo polymer clay
Alcohol ink (I’m using Adirondack Sailboat Blue and Amethyst)
A large square cutter
A texture (I’m using a Square Rhythms Kor roller)
A tissue blade
A pasta machine
An acrylic roller
A cutter (I'm using the Boho Shield from Createalong.com)
Wet/dry sandpaper / polishing papers
An oven
Renaissance wax

How to Do An Alcohol Ink Tinted Skinner Blend Mica Shift Step by Step

To start with you’ll need to tint your clay. Roll out two sheets of Premo Pearl White polymer clay on the thickest setting of your pasta machine.
Spread one of each of your alcohol ink colors over each sheet and allow to dry for about ten minutes. I'm using Adirondack Amethyst and Sailboat Blue.
Once dry, knead the ink into the clay to give a beautiful tinted color.
Roll out a sheet of Silver Premo on the thickest setting of your pasta machine.
Using a large square cutter, cut a square from each of your sheets. You should have two colors and one silver.
Fold each square in half.
Line the three resulting triangles up, and create a three part Skinner blend.

See my three part Skinner Blend tutorial for detailed instructions.
Trim the edges of your Skinner blend.
Use your chosen texture sheet, or in my case, Kor roller to texture your Skinner blend.
Use a flexible tissue blade to shave off the raised areas of your sheet to make a mica shift.

See my Mica Shift tutorial for detailed instructions.
Gently roll in all directions with your acrylic roller to flatten your sheet.

Using up the scraps

Arrange your shavings in a pile and gently squish them together.
Roll flat with your acrylic roller to create a mica smash.

In the video tutorial, I show a finished, sanded and buffed cabachon, so be sure to have a look at that.