A Button Makeover

I love buttons as much as I love glitter, so why not combine the two for a “cute-as- a-button sparkly” project? Store bought buttons are great, but to add to my collection, I opted to make some of my own buttons using polymer clay. And of course I decided to embellish my buttons with some wonderful Art Glitter colors. I also decided to add a glittery surface to a couple of store bought buttons to show that you can transform an ugly store bought button into something pretty. One example of a rather “blah” looking button was this gold and cream colored button. It came in a bagged assortment of buttons and I honestly thought I’d never use this particular button for embellishing any of my projects. Instead of embellishing with this button, I embellished the button itself. After I added some glitter, I altered the gold color on the button with some alcohol ink. I like how the button turned out after some glitter and alcohol ink alterations. It didn’t take a lot of effort to get some pleasing results. I used the Designer Dries Clear Adhesive, #519 Reed and #58 Brown on the store bought “blah” button. How do you think it looks?

an ugly button makeover!

I used the same type of materials for my polymer clay buttons. First, I added the glitter with the Dries Clear Adhesive. Then I applied some glossy accents over the glitter. Next I decided to see how the alcohol inks would look over the glossy covered glitter. On one button I had used #84 Shiney Si Ultrafine Opaque glitter covered with glossy accents and used a mix of blue and butterscotch colored alcohol ink as a last layer. This created a new and interesting color effect over the glitter. The button is shown in the following photo.

And of course I could not forget to add some of my favorite colored glitter to a few of my buttons. What color is that? It’s the #D1 Dazzlers Crazy Corn color. As I mentioned in a previous article, it’s hard not to add it to all my pieces because I love how sparkly it is and how there’s a variation of large pieces of glitter along with smaller pieces. Again, I used the Designer Dries Clear Adhesive for adding glitter to the polymer clay buttons. And I covered the Dazzlers Crazy Corn with the glossy accents to highlight the super sparkliness of this gorgeous glitter color. Look at it sparkle in the next couple of photos!

Can you count how many buttons I used Crazy Corn on?

After decorating the buttons, I made some of them into rings and some as pendants.

Supplies used for my buttons: #84 Shiney Si Ultrafine Opaque, #58 Brown Ultrafine Opaque, #D1 Dazzlers Crazy Corn, #519 Reed Microfine Opaque, #65 Old Gold Ultrafine Opaque, #184 T-Bird Ultrafine Pearlescent, Designer Dries Clear Adhesive, Ultrafine Metal Tip, Glossy Accents, alcohol inks, antique gel medium, thread, jewelry findings-ring bases & bails.

Please visit my Etsy shop, Lilly Bug Boutique, where some of the pieces shown are available to purchase.

You can also visit my WordPress Blog to see the same post, eventually I will only be blogging using WordPress.

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!

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

Sparkly Altoid Boxes

My love for Altoid tins prompted me to embellish some empty ones that I saved. I tend to be a craft supply “pack rat” and for awhile now I’ve had a small stash of empty Altoid tins just waiting to be decorated. After patiently anticipating their rejuvenation, the Altoid tins finally had their chance to sparkle and shine.

First I spray painted the tins with some leftover antique gold paint. Then I added some glittery touches using the Designer Dries Clear Adhesive & a variety of Art Glitter colors. For the box pictured, I started to make a few random circles with the adhesive and sprinkled one color of glitter over the wet adhesive. Next I let the first set of glittery circles dry. Once they were dry, I made a new set of random circles with the adhesive & glitter. I continued this process until I had random circles across the tin cover in colors of T-Bird (#184), Jamaica (D30) and Siren (D28). I wanted to add just a little more glimmer, so I used Crazy Corn (#D1) to fill in the space between the circles. As one last touch, I used Glossy Accents by Ranger, to apply over the circles.

I liked using the Art Glitter Dazzlers line of glitter for this Altoid tin project. The pieces of glitter in the Dazzlers are larger, and they worked well with the circle shapes on the tin cover. Using the T. Bird (#184) Ultrafine Pearlescent glitter for some of the other circles added some glittery contrast to the larger, more sparkly Dazzlers colors of Siren and Jamaica. I also liked how the Dazzler color, Crazy Corn (D1) had a combination of large pieces of glitter with ultrafine pieces of glitter. And the fact that the ultrafine glitter used in the Crazy Corn is in a red and a gold color, giving it a look of depth and warmth. Using the Crazy Corn color in the background on the tin helped to unify the Dazzlers colors of Siren & Jamaica, with the Ultrafine Pearlescent color of T. Bird. After using the Crazy Corn, it has proven to be one of my favorite colors to use. I never tire of seeing how fascinating the sparkles look in the Crazy Corn glitter. And it’s hard to resist adding it to all the rest of my pieces. You are sure to see Crazy Corn used again in at least one of my future projects. Don’t miss it!

Glittery Petite Purses

This is my first “official” Art Glitter project and I had loads of fun embellishing my Petite Purses with gorgeous, sparkly Art Glitter. Fall is just around the corner and it happens to be one of my favorite seasons, so I decided to make some purse designs with an Autumn theme. I make my Petite Purses out of sheets of fun foam and an assortment of embellishments. I have used the purses for presenting little treasures tucked inside such as the sculptural pins and magnets that I make. My Petite Purses come in two sizes, small and large. The purses made for this project are made in the larger size, which are a perfect size for gift cards.

While at a local craft store, I found some leaf embellishments and decorative brads to add some pizzazz to my purses. However, the most pizzazz came once the Art Glitter was applied. It was the last feature I added, but it was definitely not the least. Wow! The glitter completely transformed the purses and they gleamed and glistened with more life than before!

And speaking of transformation, I was able to turn my dull plain brads for attaching the purse straps, into some sparkly wonderful brads. I did not have the correct color of brads to use on my fall colored purses, so I looked to the transformative properties of the glitter as my solution. The brads were in light pastel colors, not quite the colors associated with Autumn. This is when the Art Glitter and the Designer Dries Clear Adhesive came to the rescue. After the plain brads were fastened to both the purse strap and the purse flap, I applied some Designer Dries Clear Adhesive to the brad caps and covered them with one of the following colors of glitter: Ultrafine #65 Old Gold, Ultrafine #56 Pumpkin, Ultrafine Pearlescent #179 Tang. I was very pleased with how the adhesive and the glitter completely transformed the brad caps from dull to dazzling. Hurray! Way to go, Art Glitter and Designer Dries Clear Adhesive! You two make a fantastic combination.

Once the leaves and brads were attached to the purse flaps, I used the Ultrafine Metal Tip on my Designer Dries Clear Adhesive bottle to start making swirls and other designs. Sometimes I used just one color of glitter to sprinkle over the adhesive, but other times I mixed some of the glitter colors together to expand my glitter color options. Another technique I used was sprinkling one of color of glitter sporadically over the adhesive and then sprinkle over it with another contrasting color to cover any remaining areas of uncovered adhesive. For example, I used the Ultrafine Pearlescent (179) Tang to sprinkle on here and there over a drawn out design in adhesive and then I’d use the Ultrafine Opaque (56) Pumpkin color afterward to cover any “un-glittered” areas of adhesive. Adding glitter in this way resembled the gradation of leaves changing color in the Fall.

I discovered the joy and contentment of working with glitter. The sparkle of glitter is so enchanting and inviting. The Art Glitter bug has bitten me. Stay tuned for more glittering projects.

Glitter colors used: Ultrafine #65 Old Gold, Ultrafine #56 Pumpkin, Ultrafine Pearlescent #179 Tang, Dazzlers #D30 Jamaica Hexis Grande, Dazzlers #D1 Crazy Corn Funky / Supplies: Designer Dries Clear Adhesive, sheets of fun foam, eyelets, decorative and plain brads, hot glue / Tools: Ultrafine Metal Tip, scissors, hot glue gun, stylus, wavy edge scissors, paper punch

Hellooooo......anyone out there?

Hello! I've neglected my blog for way too long. How are you out there in blog-land doing?

Things over here are okay. I am getting ready to receive a replacement laptop from HP. If you have read my previous blog post, you can see how much wasted time and headaches that I've spent dealing with HP. Hopefully my replacement computer will not give me so much grief and cause me any additional inconveniences.

Last week I sent in my first blog article for the Art Glitter website. It's the first of six articles that I will be writing for them. I am excited about doing the articles since I love to write and to work with glitter. Working with glitter is so very relaxing and I never tire of the way it sparkles. The only thing that I wish I could resolve is the way glitter seems to migrate to other areas where you'd prefer it would not go. Anyone have some tips on how to control glitter migration?