Alcohol Ink Swirl Tumbler

My second Cup I flopped a couple of times, and I have found that sometimes the simplest cups can be the most difficult.

I started with acrylic inks mixed with epoxy; which looked amazing but chime the "trial and error bell," Acrylic mixed in epoxy seems to dry faster then expected and as I let it turn I tried to add more acrylic ink and it no longer wanted to "flow." So had to strip it.

Then I went to an acrylic pour, what can I say, I hated it, didn't have the look I wanted, so second go was striped...

So now we get to the third and final, I wanted something a little darker almost a royal blue so I went back to the good ol' alcohol inks and was able to achieve the look I was going for.

After adding a little extra darker blue ink the cup was ready to dry. One more learned lesson was do not use a heat gun once the epoxy has started to cure. I ended up having large diviets that had to be sanded out.

Once sanded and washed it was time for the lettering and I must say I was happy with the finished product and so was the person that received the cup. This was my first official sale and I was excited and a bit nervous, but it was a great learning experience and had fun doing it.

Let me know what you think, tell me about your first sell. I am interested to know how others, newbies and long time cup makers got their start.