Tuesday, May 1, 2012

I Made the Team!

 Here is my first post as a member of the newly formed Art Glitter Design Team!  I am so excited for a year full of glitter!  In this post, I am going to feature some easy ways to put glitter on a scrapbook page.  I used two different techniques and three different types of glitter here. 
The first technique was on the fire ring.  I used a glue stamp pad and some older See D's Rubber cling stamps.  Obviously, they were of flames.  I stamped on the yellow cardstock, and then poured glitter over the area and cut around the flames.  The glitters that I used were Ultrafine Transparent #93 Lemone, Ultrafine Pearlescent #179 Tang and Microfine Opaque #500 Ruby Red.  Here is a closer look.
 It has been raining up here in Michigan for a couple of days, so I wasn't able to get the beautiful photos that I was looking for to help explain the differences between the colors that I used.  The Lemone is transparent, so it is just a whisper of color on the yellow.  Transparent colors are light and clear and just give the color that you use as a base a subtle beauty.  Of course, using it on yellow made it even more subtle.  You can see it clearly on the shiney flame behind the red in the flash area.
Pearlescent colors are a little stronger on their own, but have a gorgeous pearl-like sheen.  You can, sadly, barely see the difference here, but in real life the Tang glitter adds a little more orange color to the yellow.  It gives more depth to the fire ring.  Look at the flame behind and beneath the red on the right of the picture.
Microfine glitter is really special. The red is an opaque, althought microfine glitter comes in transparent as well.  Opaque glitter completely covers the color of the background cardstock.   It is the bright red here.  I wanted one color to take center stage, and the red was it!  The other special thing about the Ruby Red is that it is Microfine.  If you look carefully at the pictures, it is the most crisp and detailed of the colors.  It appears so sharp is because the glitter is finely ground.   That also causes the glitter to float around a lot, so make sure that if you use it, you burnish it, or rub it in hard with your fingers.  Then, brush it off for a beautiful finish. 
Another color that you will find on the fire ring is the mixed color.  It is primarily the red mixed with the yellow.  This blending can best be accomplished by placing the ultrafine color down first.  Then, rub some of the microfine on the top.  Flecks of the microfine are actually so fine that they go in between the ultrafine glitter.  It creates a true blended look.
Well, on to the title.  I cut it with my Silhouette machine.  I used a font called Char, which I obtained online for free.  I had to ungroup it to remove some of the finer details.  Then, I made an offset shape for the "shadow".  I cut both shapes from yellow cardstock. 
So, here is the second simple tip:  run the title through your Xyron upside down.  That's right.  I set the main title upside down in my Xyron.  Then, I dipped it in my Microfine Opaque Ruby Red.  I rubbed it a little with my fingers and brushed it off.  I ran the backround upside down through the Xyron as well.  When I removed it, I first placed the red glittered title in it.  Then, I poured the Ultrafine Transparent Lemone on top of it.  Unlike the flames, which blended, you can see here that the title did NOT blend.  Why?  Well, the Microfine is so finely ground that it took ALL the available space on the title.  See how lush it looks?  When the Ultrafine is poured on top, there is nowhere for it to attach except for the shadow of the letter.
Well, hopefully you have read this all and learned a lot about glitters and adhesive tricks.  There are a lot more types of projects and materials that I am going to cover during this exciting year of glitter!

4 comments:

  1. This page is HOT! Love the blending technique!

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  2. Awesome job! Great techniques, and the layout looks awesome! Hope you get some sun soon! :)

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  3. Very awesome page! Love how you did the flames!!! You are so good!

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  4. Love the red and the yellow! I'm amazed at the fine detail... it looks fantastic!

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