how to colorize UTEE

I know, I've been totally absent the last week. I am a bad, bad blogger. Sigh. But, in my excuse, I've had more work than I know what to do with. It seems like my list keeps getting longer and my days keep getting shorter. So to make-up for my absence, here is a little how-to for you:
HOW TO COLORIZE UTEE
It is no secret that I love UTEE. It has so many wonderful uses--and one of the best things about it is that it can be colorized. Here is what you will need, plain UTEE, alcohol inks, mixing container, Popsicle stick, and pearl-ex (optional.)



I like to use a watchmakers tin for mixing because it has a nice wide mouth and makes stirring easier. Put some UTEE in the tin. I like to use about 2 tablespoons, but you can do as much or as little as you like.
Next put 3 drops of alcohol inks in your UTEE. It will clump and ball up, this is where your pop sickle stick comes in--use it to mash and stir the UTEE dispersing the color.

You know it's ready when the UTEE is dry and stirs easily with no clumps. If you can't get it to this stage add a little more UTEE to help dry it out and keep working. You can, of course play around with color combinations--but I've gotten my best results with mixing the colors into the UTEE in separate batches and then stirring the powder together (for example mixing one batch of red and one of yellow and then combining the powders to make a nice orange) because sometimes mixing them directly makes the color get muddy.

Now, for the last step I like to add a little pear-ex to the mix. It gives the powder a nice shimmer. (Actually, what I do, is take half the powder and put it one container without the powder and mix the pearl-ex into the other half so I have both.) All you really need is one little scoop--a little but of this stuff goes a long way.
Here is a picture of a piece I did using colorized UTEE both with and without the pearl ex powder:

You should note that the colors will always be opaque, unless you mix in some white UTEE. There is just no way around it.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!