Let It Shine

     I am honoured to join Inkspirational this fortnight as a guest designer. The challenge  is a word prompt - Shine, so for me it had to be another acetate and glitter card.
     This post is a bit photograph heavy because I've done a little tutorial on this technique, read on and you'll discover it's not as tricky as it looks.....honest.
     As with most things that shine taking pictures is troublesome so please forgive the quality of some of the pictures, it really does look better 'in the card' .  


     I would suggest you choose a simple design without too many tiny fiddly areas that need to be filled in.
 

      Using Stazon stamp your chosen image on to the acetate. The trick with this is to stamp firmly straight down and don't wiggle, just lift straight back up again. If it goes wrong don't worry, just use Stazon cleaner to wipe it away and try again.
     If you really don't want to stamp then use a peel off instead, put the peel off on the front of your acetate just like a stamped image.

      Turn your acetate over as all the glitter will be added on the back. Put a sheet of paper underneath the acetate so you can see where you are working clearly.
     The best glue I have used for this technique is Art Glitter, it dries clear and holds the glitter very well. If you don't have any of this glue try what you do have on a scrap of acetate to see if it holds the glitter once dry.
 

      Work in small areas using one colour of glitter at a time. The glue will dry slowly as there is no absorption into the acetate, this gives you a little more time to work.
     Make sure you dust off all of the glitter before beginning on another colour.
 

      Once the glue is completely covered with glitter and the excess removed you can move on to another colour, there is no need to wait until it's completely dry, just be careful not to cross contaminate colours.
     The glue comes with a fine tip but I have bought a metal fine tip cover to make sure it always comes out in a tiny trail. When filling areas on the acetate you may notice it shrinks back from the edges sometimes, just go back and add a little more to the edges but don't go over them.

      A large area like this bauble will take longer to dry. As you can see in this picture the small holly and berry areas are already drying clear to show the glitter.
      This is not something you can speed up with a heat gun, but leaving it on a radiator should not harm it.
      To give somewhere to write your greeting you will need to add a backing to your glittered image. I usually add a dark colour to show off the glitter, but for this one I would have lost the string holding the bauble had I used black.
      Something Christmas like.......silver mirri. To fix the mirri card to the acetate I have glued it on the glittered areas, this is because I have tried glue dots, tape and micro dots in the past but they all show through the acetate. The glue took ages to dry because it was sandwiched between two non porous surfaces, again the radiator and a few hours proved all it needed.
     Once completely dry I added the greeting to the reverse of the mirri card and that's it, finished. I like working with acetate in this way, it makes the image look like it's floating. The only draw back is taking photographs of something so very shiny is not easy.
     I hope this has all made sense, if not then please let me know. Thank you to Inkspirational for the chance to guest design for them, please join them this time with your shiny creations.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Moving Along With The Times - Sparkle and/or Shine

Creative Moments - Anything Goes Celebration

Crafty Sentiments Designs - Make It Sparkle

Creative Card Crew - Christmas Joy