Hearts of Glitter

I'm beginning to blog using the WordPress platform, so please click here to see my full Art Glitter article about embellishing some cute little heart boxes with gorgeous glitter!

Green "shoe" box

I had fun making this box using cardboard packaging material and adhesive flicker green paper. It took longer to make than anticipated, but I am happy with how it turned out. I have an old book, "Creative Gift Wrapping" by Sandra Roth & Beverly Bieker, that shows how to make unique gift packaging and they made a sneaker box from a cereal box. I adapted mine to a smaller size. It was a perfect box to send to my favorite youtubers, Rhett and Link. I filled the box with Jolly Ranchers and shipped it out for Rhett's birthday. Earlier this year when it was Link's birthday in June, I sent them some gifts for his birthday. Some of the items that I sent made it into one of their vlog updates. Yay! Now I will see if my shoe box will make into one of their upcoming vlog updates.

The box opens at the tongue and is closed by lacing a real shoestring through it.

A peek at the inside of the box.

Glimmer Trees

For my business I make an assortment of sculptural pieces to make into pins or magnets. I recently made a sculptural tree design that was looking for something beyond the basic coat of acrylic paint. After adding some pizzazz with Art Glitter to some dull looking brads for a previous project, I decided that my new tree design would be a perfect candidate for a similar glimmer treatment. I make my sculptural pieces with resin after I first make an original piece in clay and make a silicone mold from that. With two newly cast, white resin trees ready to be decorated, I decided to make a tree to symbolize summer and one to symbolize autumn. Once my assortment of glitter grows, I’d like to make a tree to represent each of the four seasons.

To make my sparkly trees, I used a variety of glitter and I also tried a microfine glitter this time. I love the sparkle of glitter, but in order to prevent a “sparkle” overload, I varied the sparkle intensity by incorporating some types of glitter with less intense glimmer. This is when using the ultrafine pearlescents are a perfect choice. They are still rich, gorgeous colors, but just with a more subdued bling factor. Using the ultrafine transparent glitters also fit in well to keep the bling intensity under control. I also used a microfine opaque glitter, which gave an additional sparkle effect not seen in any of the other varieties of glitter. The microfine glitter gives a smoother, more uniform glitter effect whereas the ultrafine opaque gives a varied sparkle effect where the glitter sparkles at a variety of angles.

I really liked how my glimmer trees turned out. To try out a varied glitter project for yourself just remember the simple “variety” formula which can be altered with other glitters of your choice. The recipe for my summer tree was: 1 ultrafine transparent + 1 ultrafine pearlescent + 1 microfine opaque + 2 ultrafine opaque = a varied palette of glittery goodness.

For the summer tree I used: 44 Kelly (ultrafine opaque), 519 Reed (microfine opaque), 241 Fresh Lime (ultrafine transparent neon), 182 Astro Turf (ultrafine pearlescent) and 58 Brown (ultrafine opaque)

For the autumn tree I used: 91 Orange Crush (ultrafine transparent), 177 Florida Orange (ultrafine pearlescent), 1 True Red (ultrafine opaque), 62 Copper Canyon (ultrafine opaque) and 58 Brown (ultrafine opaque)

***Note: I also hand-painted an additional pair of trees to symbolize summer and fall, but they just don’t hold the same charm as the glittery ones. After something is glitter-fied, nothing else compares to it.

Look what came in the mail!

This year I participated in a Winter Holiday Gift Swap reader challenge through the Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine. Awhile ago I sent out the "Wish" pin holiday gift that I made and then I waited until Cloth, Paper, Scissors sent me a gift from another reader who participated in the swap. Today I received my gift and it is so adorable. It's a whimsically embellished wooden decorative piece with a clothespin attached to the back so I can clip it onto something, possibly a picture frame. I absolutely love it.

The piece was mounted on an equally adorable handmade card complete with fun and cheerful ribbon embellishments.

I think my fellow reader and gift-giver must love glitter as much as I do. On the back of the card she printed a very glitter worthy quote, "You're not completely dressed until you have glitter on your face!" Reading that put a smile on my face, especially since I have a love for glitter and I am always thinking of new objects to glitter-fy. Caroline, thank you for the lovely handmade gift!

Want to see some of my glittery projects that I've written for Art Glitter? I have 4 more Art Glitter articles to write. Stay tuned!

Sparkly Altoid Boxes

Glittery Petite Purses