I am finally finishing up a project started a couple of months ago. One item has been done since then, but the other one gave me materials issues. These are a present for a family friend who got married earlier in the year--one for her & her husband, and a companion piece for her parents.
The bride's wedding was very elegant--colors were silver, pearl, cream--no actual color. So I did her tin with glass spheres and silver mini marbles, and the scrolls were edged with silver leafing. For her parents' piece, I wanted something with bold colors, so I thought I'd use Lava Red Roxs, iridescent glass spheres, and gold mini marbles. To my great dismay, the Lava Red Roxs were not colorfast! When I coated the whole thing in Glossy Accents to seal the mini marbles on and provide a finished look, the red ran and tinted everything a shade of orange that I did not find particularly appealing. The folks at Judikins, which makes the Roxs, were very helpful, but basically I was out of luck if I wanted to use red or pink Roxs (all other colors are apparently colorfast). So it was back to the drawing board, but I was at a loss for what to use. Then the holiday card orders went into full swing and the month of October went by just like that.
The good thing about the delay, however, is that I discovered two gels from Golden that I hadn't used before. One was the Clear Granular Gel, and the other the Extra Coarse Pumice Gel. Neat stuff! In the end, this is what I ended up doing:
--coated lid with Perfect Medium and applied a couple of layers of Frozen Opals, then filled in spaces with Kaleidoscope embossing powder; when cool, I poured a thick layer of Diamond Glaze over the entire (top of the) lid
--made a mix of Extra Coarse Pumice Gel, 22 drops Quinacridone Red Fluid Acrylic and 3 drops Quinacridone Crimson Fluid Acrylic, then applied this to the sides of the bottom and the lid
--when dry, I applied some Interference Gold (Coarse) Heavy Body Acrylic over it, leaving plenty of the underneath to show through
--I realized it was too pinkish for my taste, so I applied some Cadmium Red Medium Hue Fluid Acrylic, then another layer of the Interference Gold
--I think after that I mixed up some Interference Red Fluid Acrylic with the Cadmium Red and applied that in patches over the whole thing, sprinkling with gold mini marbles as I went
--finally I was happy with that and let it dry over night. Then I applied Diamond Glaze over the sides and stuck some iridescent glass spheres on as I went. I also used Glossy Accents (a little less runny than DG) around the edge of the lid to place the glass spheres around it.
The scrolls inside are edged with gold leafing. I think I'm almost done! Now just have to wait for it to dry so I can mail it off.
