ICAD 2017 #9

Today I made some of my own glitter "paste" to use on my projects.  I wanted to be able to use the paste with stencils.  I already had some loose glitter that I wanted to use in the paste.  I bought Liquitex Professional Gloss Super Heavy Gel.  I went with a gel instead of a texture paste, because I wanted it to dry translucent.  I used a Stampin' Up Gold fine glitter.  I mixed both in a seal able container.  Then I used Tim Holtz clock stencil on this card.  It does take a while to dry, but the glitter doesn't wipe off at all.

I spread the paste on with a plastic palette knife over the stencil.  It spread very easily and didn't seep

under the stencil.  I did find that after drying the gel is not as raised as a modeling paste, but you can still feel a texture when you run your fingers over it.

Once it was dry, I stamped Laugh, Live, Love (stamp by Art-c stamp/die set) in Memento Tuxedo Black ink randomly on the card. Then I blended Distress Inks Broken China, Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord in a diagonal strips over the card.  I think the Distress Ink blended easier than the Stampin' Up ink blended yesterday.  The coverage is more even and doesn't show the shape of the blending tool as easily. The Stampin' Up ink does work well though for blending, and I think it stamps better than the Distress Ink,  The colors values are very different though.  One important thing to remember about Distress Ink is that they have a green or brown value to them to give a vintage look to your projects.  Stampin' Up inks doesn't use green or brown to change the values of there colors, but use traditional black and white.  This gives them less of a vintage look, but more of cleaner value. I wanted this card to have more of a vintage look, so I went with the Distress Inks.

I really love how the glitter paste worked as a resist when blending the ink.  This really helps to give contrast to the stenciled image by being able to see the white of the card underneath the gold glitter.  I am going to have to try and find a rose stencil.  It would look so lovely over a red or pink background.  

You don't have to create your own glitter paste, there are many companies that sell glitter pastes.  I just like to DIY some of my art supplies.  I did create another glitter paste with a Recollections fine holographic glitter.  I am going to experiment with some other glitters and some Pearl Ex powder.  I might even try mixing some glitter in textured paste, to compare to the gel paste. I think it is fun to experiment and create something that is unique.