Abstract Acrylic Bangle Bracelets

Last year Rob had this fun little thing where his students (he teaches art at the local college) volunteered their time to teach little kids about the science of color at a big to do. The concept was based off of a project that I did where I used alcohol inks to marble up a bunch of fall coasters. It turned out that I loved my coasters and the kids loved theirs, too!

To get ready for this thing Rob purchased a ton of white tiles and a ton of alcohol inks. But I started to worry about little kids overusing things so I tossed all of my alcohol inks into the mix, too, so that Rob and the kids would not run out. And when we brought them home the bag was a disaster! Ink every where, most of the bottles totally empty and not wanting to spend money on more I made my own alcohol inks at home. And it was a pretty dang smashing success, too. Until I lost them :)

Now I know that those things are somewhere in this house but I have no clue where. And so I went and bought even more alcohol inks because I just don’t have enough duplicates of crafty things around here. I’m trying to be sarcastic here, but as you cannot read tone in text I thought I’d fill you in on that little bit of info! It is so frustrating buying the same dang things over and over again BUT I really, really wanted to make these bracelets and I didn’t want to wait any longer. So I got those 40% off coupons all ready to go and bought even more inks and knocked this little project out in about 30 minutes.

For this project you will need:

• Acrylic bangle bracelets
• Alcohol inks (you can make your own here)
• Spray polyurethane or other sealer

I got my clear bangles at Hobby Lobby. If you don’t have a store nearby they also sell online. Mine were $2.49 apiece when the ‘Blank Slate’ items were on sale half price. Another good place to look would be the dollar jewelry stores!

Alcohol inks are a lot of fun to play around with and I’ve used them before on those coasters and on a gorgeous abstract acrylic tray. And if you can’t find the clear bangles I also used alcohol inks to dye resin to make bangles kind of similar to these you can see below:

Those are a lot of fun, too but you have the resin smell and you have to wait for them to cure. Still tons of fun! But let’s get back to today’s bangles!

Working inside of the bangle you can dot ink and allow it to dribble and drip on its own.

Or you can add in a straw and blow the ink around.

Dribbling and blowing with the straw is how I made this particular bangle.

Feeling a bit lightheaded I decided to do something slightly different for my next bangle. Quickly applying a small amount of alcohol to the surface, I then drew lines with a single drop of alcohol ink throughout the bangle. See how the line fuzzes out? That’s because of the alcohol.

I repeated with many lines and then set the bangle upright to allow the excess ink to drip and bleed together as it dried.

A quick spray of sealer or polyurethane on the inside of the bangle will seal the ink and ensure you don’t get any on yourself or your clothing during the day.

The whole project took about 30 minutes and that’s because I took  my time and enjoyed it! In the end these guys are beautiful, inexpensive and very, very colorful!