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!