Art Recipe Wednesday: Sparkle and Shine - Glitter Hacks!

Hi folks! How was your week?
It is not a surprise I was travelling again - this time to visit beautiful, friendly Slovenia - a tiny country that has a special place in my heart since we spent wonderful vacation there a couple of years ago. My weekend was just perfect: wonderful people, beautiful places and inspiring classes...
Small hint for those of you who are interested what is going on with me -  you can always find the latest news from blog, studio, classes and travels here, on my Instagram account. (I have to admit - I think I am already addicted to this social medium... sigh.)

Anyway - it's Wednesday and I'm back with my next Art Recipe tutorial, hoping I will be able to add a bit of sparkly magic to your future projects... come on, what would be life like without a bit of shiny glitter?
In fact, my inspiration for today's post was the golden dipped feather decoration I found in the latest issue of Somerset Life (Volume 8 Issue 4) which I always read with pleasure.
Just when I saw it I was sure I'd like to make something which would include one of these feathers... it is simple to do, it is just delicious to look at and it can fit in so many different projects! Of course just when I started thinking about how to use it  there were tons of  ideas coming to my head... This way from we came from cute, pretty, delicate inspiration to glitter-heavy and (hopefully) informative Art Recipe, which is all about tips and tricks for using Fine Glitter in your projects! Enjoy!

A touch of glitter adds a bit of magic to our lives... but I have to admit I was always careful with using it. I was afraid I will go one step too far with it making my project "too heavy" or glitter won't stay on it for too long which would lead to my deep frustration. Luckily - there are some useful "glitter hacks" I  experimented with and I'd like to share with you today!

In the project above I mixed together a couple of shades of extremely shiny and beautiful Fine Glitter (Art Ingredients - Luminous Set) to get more deep, interesting effect. I believe this multi-toned glitter did great job both on background and embellishments. Because glitter is naturally so rich I decided to limit my color palette to just browns and a touch of light purple and keep as much of white space as possible.

Glitter was used to decorate the feather and alphabet letters. Here came Art Basics Soft Gel to help - truly perfect adhesive for most of embellishments and Prima Art Ingredients. With just a bit of imagination (and glitter of course) you can transform your old, plain alphabets, chipboards, wooden elements (errrm... almost anything to be honest) into new, bold, eye-catching details for your home decor, mixed-media, card or scrapbooking projects. How cool (and simple) is this?

The background pattern was made with a stencil (Prima Elementals) and self-made Glitter Paste. The base is absolutely transparent, smooth and easy to apply 3D Gloss Gel from Art Basics. Because it is naturally permanent and resistant after drying my Glitter Paste with all leftover glitters mixed in resisted to my tea stain and Ecoline splashes. Exciting, isn't it? And it gets even better: this paste makes your glitter 100% irremovable. No flaking, no crumbling. No dirty fingers.
Should I say more?

Ok, ready? 

Here is my full Art Recipe and step-by-step tutorial full of cool "glitter hacks":

So, now time to do it all -  step-by-step!

1. I started the whole process creating the element which inspired me so much - a gold dipped feather. I took a bunch of feathers and mixed 3 tones of Art Ingredients Fine Glitter from Luminous Set in a small bowl - to get more interesting effect. Next, I generously covered the tips of the feathers - on both sides -  with Art Basics Soft Matte Gel.

2.  I sprinkled my glitter mix on the feathers and dipped them in the leftover glitter. Just after that I dried them with my heating tool for a moment... it really dried fast and Soft Gel gave the glitter grains great hold!

3. I repeated the same trick with my old leftover alphabet - I'm sure you have plenty of these, waiting somewhere in the drawers! Now I had a PERFECT match to my decorated feather. (I can't believe I got so "trendy" in this project, haha!) I don't know why but the only word which kept coming to my mind when I was creating this was "bliss"...

4. To create dimensional glitter paste for the background of my scrapbook page I used all the glitter leftovers I had mixed  from the previous steps. I just added a bit of Art Basics 3D Gloss Gel, mixed it  for a moment and it was ready to apply with a palette knife or credit card. 3D Gels are very sticky  and formulated to be a good base for add-ons such as Art Ingredients: event with large amount of grains in them they are still very sticky and easy to spread.

5. I applied a generous layer of glitter paste through one of my stencils. It wasn't shiny and pretty yet - 3D Gel had to dry to get transparent - but after a short moment of drying it turned absolutely beautiful. My next step was splashing some tea stain and Ecoline watercolor on the background to  create an interesting pattern for my page. 3D Gels resist to water based inks and sprays - and so did my custom made glitter paste.

6. When the stain and paint was dry I layered a simple paper and fabric composition in the middle of the page. I added one Prima - Mechanicals trinket between the layers, a bit of golden wire, buttons and finally - my decorated feather. For adhering  most of my elements I used 3D Foam Squares from Scrapbook Adhesives which have great hold and are not melting when heated by heating tools. The only exception was the text - I used Soft Matte Gel in a fine tip bottle to glue it down.
Done - fast, furious and with glitter ;)

List of supplies from Mixed Media Place Shop for your convenience:

I hope you liked my ideas - I believe it is fun to do - and so simple!
If you'd like to share your projects with Art Ingredients Fine Glitter I'd be more than happy to see them...
I wish you all a great week - wherever you are.
With glittery hugs

P.S. Do you remeber about our Cosy Blog Hop and Challenge? Grab some inspiration from us all and join the fun:) Chase the Autumn gloom away!