My wife has been into paper quilling (info on quilling can be found here) lately and I have been helping her make backgrounds for her to quill over. Her quilling Instagram page is here.

We decided to try using alcohol ink to make these backgrounds. While we were learning how to manipulate the ink I thought back to the carbonate guitar picks I made a while ago and thought that alcohol ink may be a cool way to color homemade guitar picks. In my opinion, this worked out quite well!

This was done by applying the alcohol ink to one side of clear carbonate sheeting. When the ink has dried. Then you cut out the pick shape you prefer or use a pick punch (I trace the pick shape on the side that doesn’t have any ink on it and cut it out with scissors). The picks in the picture were created with .80 mm thick clear carbonate sheeting sandwiched together with super glue. The alcohol ink coloring is encapsulated inside the pick so the coloring will not wear off or get on your hands.

More information on how I make these picks can be found in an older post I wrote here.

I varied the process a bit in this case since I applied the coloring/artwork before I cut out the pick shape from the carbonate sheeting. I also finished these two picks entirely by hand using varying sandpaper grits from 120, 220, 600, 1500, 2000, 2500 to shape and polish the picks.

The pictured picks are about 1.6 mm thick, are very stiff, and allow you to play as fast as you can go.

#alcoholink #guitarpick