A Pendant. . .well, a Keychain for Mom

This is my very first post as a Design Team Member for Globecraft & Piccolo.  I am so excited to be a part of this dynamic team! I hope you will enjoy my tutorial and please be sure to stop by the G&P blog daily to feast your eyes on more of the fabulous creations the Design Team has in store!

Let me tell you that I am not the most coordinated person, in fact, I am really clumsy.  It has gotten worse since I had my back surgery (almost 2 years ago) as my equilibrium is still trying to adjust to my “new” back – I often walk into walls, trip over my own two feet and other fun party tricks! I have always been clumsy and only recently have started to trust myself with sharp objects and other dangerous items.  I tell you this because it will make sense later on in the post.  Read on. 

My mom is my biggest fan – how could she not be? – and I love making her gifts and cards.  Unfortunately, my mom is legally blind due to glaucoma, but she does have some sight, depending on the time of day, the weather (sunny or cloudy) and how tired her eyes are.  When I saw these acrylic blanks and the adorable chipboard shapes from Globecraft & Piccolo, I knew Mom would love a pendant. 

The Items I Used:

• Oval Acrylic Craft Charm 
• Fine Flower & Vines Flourish Accents 
• Tiny Stars, Hearts, Flowers & Swirls (I used one heart) 
• Glasstique Gloss Finishing Glaze 
• Mardi Gras Embossing Enamel (I had already embossed the tiny heart) 
• Sharpie Marker in Green
• LuminArte Radiant Rain in Rich Cobalt
• Small Paint Brush
• Mrs. Grossman's Alphabet Stickers, black with clear background
• Blue Plastic Flower Gem
• Piece of Purple Shimmer Cardstock for backing
• Keychain (which is not listed in the store yet, but will be!)

The Fine Flower & Vines Flourishes naked :)

First thing I did was figure out my layout.  I knew I wanted the pendant to say Mom, to have flowers & hearts and be vibrant enough so she could see it.  I had colored the flower with Distress Markers first, but then I was worried that they’d run and I’d be left with a bare flower once they had contact with the Glasstique, so I recolored with a green Sharpie for the stem of the flower and LuminArte Rich Cobalt for the actual flowers.  Since LuminArte is also water soluble I knew there’d be some running of the color, but I wanted to give it a try and I felt a halo effect would almost enhance the pendant.  I colored the flower & stem quite a few times, letting it dry thoroughly in between coloring.

The beginning of the layout

Now I had to dig through my immense stash of letter stickers.  I confess, letters and fonts are another crafty addiction of mine and I had quite a bit of stickers to choose from.  And of course, the last bunch I looked at had the perfect black letters on a clear backing from Mrs. Grossman.  I stuck those on the acrylic base and then fooled with the flower and the little heart (that I had previously embossed with Mardi Gras Embossing Enamel when I was using the enamel on a card I made).  Once I was happy with the placement, I glued everything down.  Let that dry overnight, just to be sure.  I also had a hell of a time getting the blue covers off the acrylic, which was nothing new, and in hindsight, I should have left the back cover on the pendant until I was done.  But nooooo, I had to take all the covers off - my mistake!

The last step was to cover the entire design with Glasstique.  I hadn’t worked with this top coat yet, but I have worked with similar products in the past.  I bit the bullet and slowly squeezed the Glasstique in the middle of the pendant and let it flow naturally over the front.  Beautiful.  I left the pendant alone for about 8 hours.  When I went to check on it, I noticed that some of the Glasstique had flowed over the sides and went under the acrylic piece, (see why I should of left the back on?) and in my terror that I would have Glasstique stuck to the back I picked the pendant up to clean off the back before it had dried completely.  Well, in doing that I also cause a ripple and a fingerprint in the front, right were the “o” in Mom was. And then I dropped it (see, this is the clumsy part) but thankfully no more damage was done and I was able to pick the cat hairs off the pendent.  OK – not to worry – I let the piece dry completely and then I figured I’d be able to fix it somehow. 

My fix was a fiasco.  I thought if I dabbed just a bit of the Glasstique where the ripple and finger print were it would magically meld itself into the already dry coating and would be fixed.  Nope.  So now, I had a blob over the ripple and fingerprint – the good news being I couldn’t see the previous mistakes, just the blob now. 

The arrow is pointing to the blob of a mistake - I didn't take a pic of my fingerprint LOL

 I wrestled with just throwing the whole thing out and trying again, but I hate to waste products (as evidenced by my overflowing stash of scraps and doo dads) so I went to plan B – after I thought of plan B.  I have quite a collection of plastic gems so I picked through the ones I felt would work with what I’d already done and humbly asked my G&P Design Teammates which “fix” looked best.  That narrowed it down to 2 possible solutions, so I chose to use a blue plastic flower gem, which I glued right onto the Glasstique with a tiny dab of E6000 glue.   And then I put the cardstock paper on the back and that also helped a bit to camouflage the blob.  Whew!  You can still see the blob in certain light, but I think it’s a save.  Mom may not have a new pendant anymore, but she has a fabulous keychain! 

The fabulous Manny holding the keychain

And the keychain - whew!

I already have my eye on what I am going to dive into next – Mom may get a pendent after all!  I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial ~ Fondly, Christi

If you’d like more information about Globecraft & Piccolo’s products, you can go to the main webpage HERE - you’ll even find some tutorial YouTube videos! 

Time Flies

I have loved the color blue ever since I was a child.  To me it always feels so cool and calm.  Since flying time (not airplanes, literally time that flies by) makes me a bit nervous – it is SO easy to get caught up in all the things that have to be done, things you want to get done and the things that won’t get done – I decided to use my calm, cool and collected blues for this project.

I recycled a Priority Mail box panel for this project (and you know I have a ton of these boxes because I love getting mail & ordering stuff online).  It worked well but it warped a bit and I couldn’t think of a way to fix it (of course, all the embellishments and what not were already on the panel) and I had already left it under a heavy weight after I painted it because it was warping.  I think what I am going to do is once I can spray it with a clear coat I will somehow affix it to a strong wooden board and while it dries from the coating hopefully it won’t be warped.  BUT I am out of clear coat, so it will have to wait. But I didn’t want to wait to share this because I think it’s beautiful and hopefully you will, too.

I used a TON of blue inks, sprays and paints to make this, but of course, you can use any colors you choose.  I think the best part of this project are the LuminArte products because they leave a shimmer and shine like nothing else I have used (of course this is just my opinion.  However, I have used ALL kinds of shimmery products.  The only ones that come close are the Tattered Angels sprays).  I have a bunch of the H20’s and the Radiant Rain daubers (they used to come in daubers, they now come in spray. I just transfer my Radiant Rain to a little spray bottle – you can either use it full strength or dilute it) and I enjoy playing with them so much.  Anyway, I highly recommend their products.  You should see what the artists with the real talent can do to with them <grin>.  Here is the LuminArte Blog if you are interested.

Now this is an unusually long list of products but don’t let that intimidate you.  It’s only long because of the many different colors of blue I used.

OK – here is what I used:

Panel from Priority Mail box (cut to a size I thought I could work with)

LuminArte RADIANT RAIN:
Majestic Blue, Rich Cobalt, Wine & Roses and Stargazer

INKS:

Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Faded Jeans, Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky & Tumbled Glass

Adirondack Denim. Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black, Versa Magic Night Sky, Memento Paris Dusk & Danube Blue and Brilliance Ink in Mediterranean Blue & Top Boss Embossing Ink

PAINTS:

White Gesso (Liquitex), White Acrylic Paint from Golden, Tim Holtz Distress Paint in Chipped Sapphire

RUBBER STAMPS:

Tim Holtz Playful Journey & Life’s Possibilities (clocks), A Stamp in The Hand, F1846, Clock Face w/ Wings and a huge bunch of various clocks, sayings, etc. from companies that I didn’t mark down on the wooden blocks (if you recognize any of these & know who made them please send me an email!)

EMBOSSING POWDERS:

- The Powder Keg Merlot & Not Quite Rusted Penny

- Personal Stamp Exchange Cobalt Tapestry

- Moon Glow Two Toned Lapis Lazuli Blue Gold

EMBELLISHMENTS:

- Small Wooden Letters (mine are about ¾” high)

- Tin Can

- Tim Holtz Sizzix Movers & Shakers Mini Gears

- Miscellaneous small watch parts

- Wooden Gear from PorkChop Show (on eBay & Esty - he sells the gears with a cutout on them but I asked for plain ones & he accommodated me with no issue.  He also makes typewriter keys, mermaids, bottles & much more - you have to go shop & see what he is offering)

- Round Numbers Stencil from Coffee Break Designs (not sure if this is still available)

Whew – I am sure I forgot something!  

First, I gessoed my panel & the wooden letters.  The letters dried quickly and I began painting them with the Radiant Rain in Majestic Blue, Rich Cobalt, Wine & Roses – I unscrewed the cap and just dipped my paint brush right into the paint.  I wanted the letters to have an ombre look, but they had other plans.  I am still really happy with how they came out.  Once the panel was dry, I painted over the gesso with white acrylic paint; I debated about leaving it just gessoed, but I wanted the shine from the acrylic paint.  Once the panel was fully dry, I used the Distress Paint in Chipped Sapphire to give the whirly background. 

My whirly background

I literally pounced the paint, spritzed it with water and used my fingers to swirl it around.  My fingers are still stained!  While that was drying, I kept painting the wooden letters and started to choose the rubber stamps I was going to use.  I have lots of clock stamps but I had already had a few in mind.  So I gathered my stamps and my ink pads and just randomly stamped around the panel.  I also used the Radiant Rain in Stargazer to highlight the letters a bit and I swirled some on the panel itself.  It is a beautiful iridescent color that reminds me of prisms the way the color changes depending how you look at it.

 

I then took a tin can that was already cut and used that to die cut the mini gears.  I knew I wanted to emboss them and I felt it was important to use the “bubble” side (when cutting tin there is one side of the die cut that has a little wall around it; the other side is puffy so I call it the "bubble" side. When coloring die cut tin with alcohol inks you want to use the side with the wall because the inks are so thin & they will run terribly if you use the bubble side.  Trust me) so I was careful to cut the die cuts so I would be embossing the plain tin and not trying to hide the label on the can. One thing to keep in mind when embossing tin like this is that the tin heats up FAST! I mean fast – I think it took less than 30 seconds to emboss each gear – and DON’T touch the tin for a while after you emboss it – it is HOT and worst case the embossing powder will come off and stick to your finger which can seriously burn you!  I embossed each gear with a different color embossing powder and they came out wonderful. I actually could of done a project with just these! (making a note of that idea <grin>)

My tin can gears

Real watch gears and the wooden gear from Pork Chop

Once all the ink from the stamping was dry, I started fiddling with all the goodies I had picked out to embellish the project.  That took me the longest because I’d set it up, then leave it for a while, come back, move this over here, leave it – well, you get the drill.  I could do that forever so I finally buckled myself down and glued everything in place.  I plan on using a spray clear coat in glossy to further protect the panel but I am totally out of clear coat.  I don’t want to use gel medium because I fear it may smear some of the inks I’ve used.  I took some pictures to try to capture the beauty of the embossing and the sparkle but nothing compares to real life.

The finished product minus the clear coat

 I hope you enjoyed by tutorial.  I hope this inspires you to use some of your favorite colors in different shades & to recycle those boxes!

I’d like to enter my Time Flies project in the following challenges:

Unruly Paper Arts – Take a Powder

Divas by Design – Favorite Color Challenge 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes!

I am also entering this in the monthly challenge at Altered Electics (Thanks for the heads up Bev!) Altered Art
Another monthly challenge I have found is Our Creative Corner, and the theme is "Words, words, words!" - I would like to enter this piece :)

NOTE: I received no compensation for this post.  Any information about products is purely my opinion.