Dungeon Of Diversity

CloudDancer Angel aka: Lady Vatrovia
An annex of: THE WITCHES CRAFT
Some of the recipes at the bottom of the page are very old and may be hard make. I wanted to include them for historical value, aaaaanyway, Have Fun!
Lady Vatrovia

MAKE YOUR OWN INKS

Basic Permanent Black Ink
1 egg yolk
1 tsp gum arabic
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp lamp black (buy in a tube or make by holding a plate over a lit candle, scrape off the black)

1) Mix egg yolk, gum arabic and honey in a small bowl.
2) Add lamp black to make a thick paste.
3) Store in a jar.
To use, mix a little paste w/ a little water to make a fluid.

Prussian Blue Ink
1) Dissolve Prussian Blue (available as laundry bluing) in water.
Makes a rich blue ink.

Brown Ink
1/2 cup boiling water
4-5 teabags (or 4 tsp of loose tea)
1 tsp gum arabic

1) Pour boiling water over the tea bags in a large bowl
2) add gum arabic.
3) Steep for 15 minutes.
4) Squeeze teabags to extract as much tannic acid as possible.
5) Strain and allow to cool before bottling.
Use with a paintbrush or quill pen, etc.

GLOW-IN-THE-DARK INK
1 oz. oil of cinnamon
1/4 oz. phosphorous

1) Pour into a small bottle
2) Close the bottle tightly and place in a hot water bath.
3) Heat until the ingredients have melted together.

Waterproof Ink
1 Tablespoon Powdered Clothes Dye
1 Tablespoon Glycerine
3/4 Cup Distilled Water

1) In a small bowl, dissolve the powdered dye in about a tablespoon of the water.
2) Add glycerine and mix well.
3) Slowly stir in the remainder of the distilled water.
This ink can be store & covered, indefinately.

Block Printing Ink
3 Tablespoons Powdered Pigment
1 Tablespoon Clear Varnish

1) On a sheet of glass, mix pigment with varnish thoroughly, using a palette knife.

To Use Roll a brayer back and forth over the ink until it's tacky and the brayer is evenly coated.
Powdered Pigment may be obtained at artist supply stores. To use this with rubberstamps, press the stamp into the ink on the glass and then print on paper.

Block Printing Ink For Fabric
Turpentine is toxic, keep this away from children!

5 Tablespoons Turpentine
2 Tablespoons Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Oil of Cloves
1 Tablespoons Ivory Dishwashing Liquid
Oil Paint Pigments

1) Pour the first 4 ingredients into an 8oz bottle and shake well.
2) Use this solution to dilute the oil pigments to the consistancy of honey or thick cream.
3) On a piece of glass, pour out a small amount and mix thoroughly with a palette knife.
4) Using a brayer, roll back and forth until ink is a tacky consistancy.
Turpentine is toxic, keep this away from the kids!

Transfer Ink
Turpentine is toxic, keep this away from children!

2 Tablespoons Ivory Snow or Soap Bar Scrapings. DO NOT USE DETERGENT
1/4 Cup Hot Water
1 Tablespoon Turpentine

1) In a bowl, dissolve the soap powder in the hot water.
2) Add turpentine and allow to cool.

Stores indefinately in a covered bottle.
If the ink becomes thick, set the bottel in a pan of warm water until it becomes liquid again. Shake well before using. To use this ink; Brush ink over the back of the picture to be transferred. Wait about 10 seconds, place a clean sheet of paper over the picture and rub with the back of a spoon or a brayer. The picture will transfer to the clean paper. Transfer ink can be used with comic book pages, print out from dot matrix printers, some inkjet print outs,newsprint. You can also use it with magazine pages, but it takes alot of ink, and the results are unpredictable. You can transfer to fabric, but it is not a washable transfer! This works best with a newly printed page. Experiment!
Remember Turpentine is toxic!

Dissappearing Ink
1 Tablet Of Any Commercial Laxative
1 Tavlespoon Rubbing Alcohol
Cotton Balls
Household Ammonia

1) Mash the laxative tablet into the tablespoon of alcohol.
2) Be sure the tablet is entirely dissolved.
To use: Write a message on the paper with paintbrush dipped into the solution. As the solution dries, the writing will disappear. To develop the message: dampen the cotton ball with liquid ammonia and dab it on the page. The writing will reappear.

OLD INK RECIPES

Black ink

According to the most accurate experiments on the preparation of black ink, it appears that the quantity of sulphate of iron should not exceed 1/3 part of that of the galls, by which an excess of color matter, which is necessary for the durability of the black, is preserved in the liquid. Gum, by shielding the writing from the action of the air, tends to preserve the color, but if much is employed, the ink flows badly from quill pens, and scarcely at all from steel pens. The latter require a very limpid ink. The addition of sugar increases the flowing property of ink, but makes it dry more slowly, and frequently passes into vinegar, when it acts injuriously on the pen. Vinegar, for a like reason, is not calculated for the fluid ingredient. The best blue galls should alone be employed in making ink. Sumach, logwood, and oak bark, are frequently substituted for galls in the preparation of common ink. When such is the case, only about one-sixth or one-seventh of the weight of copperas should be employed.
Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes. circa 1870

Ink Powder

1 pound nut-galls
7 ounces copperas
7 ounces gum-arabic

Pulverize and mix. This amount of ink powder will make 1 gallon of good black ink. Two or three powdered cloves should be mixed with each pound of powder, to prevent moulding.
Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes. circa 1870

Glycerine Ink

Take copperas, 4 ounces
nut-galls, 12 ounces
logwood, 8 ounces
vinegar, 8 ounces
gum-arabic, 1 ounce
glycerine, 1/2 ounce
water, 48 ounces

all the solid substances are to be pulverized and boiled for an hour together; they are then set to cool, strained through a flannel bag, and after that filtered through a folded filter. A drop of oil of cloves is added, the whole well shaken and filled into bottles. This ink will copy well.
Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes. circa 1870

Simple Carbon Ink

Dissolve 30 grains of sugar in 30 grains of water, to which add a few drops of concentrated sulphuric acid. Upon heating this mixture the sugar becomes carbonized by the acid, and when applied to the paper it leaves a coating of carbon which cannot be washed off. This stain is rendered more perfect by the decomposing action of the ink itself upon the paper, and thus resists the action of chemical agents.
Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes. circa 1870
NOTE: This ink might be acceptable for acid-free, heavy-weight papers, but I believe that it might burn holes through most 20th century papers which have high acid content.)

NOTES ON INKS

1) If ink has a tendency to bleed or run when applied to paper, try adding more gum Arabic to the ink.
2) To prevent ink from molding, add a few bruised cloves, or a little oil of cloves.
An old practice, no longer recommended, was to add a few drops of creosote to prohibit the formation of mold.
Creosote is now considered to be a hazardous substance.