This is one of my most favorite techniques that I have been teaching for years – over 15 years to be exact!!! I know that I have been nostalgic with techniques because what has been taught for years, is still relevant today. How the finished project is used may be different, but the techniques go on and on forever.
Jewelz, a richly pigmented mica powder works perfectly with this technique – you’ll want All the colors! The other product that completes this technique is Cut.Bond.Create – it is a wonderfully versatile double-sided adhesive sheet that is heat-resistant, transparent, non-yellowing, acid free, and flexible.
USAQ Supplies:
Jewelz Pigmented Mica Powder – Various Colors
Perfect Brushes – #4 round for most painting, 1/2″ snap for fill in or large backgrounds
Before Cut.Bond.Create became available, I used to do this technique with other transparent substrates. A double-sided adhesive was used to paint with the pigmented powders. With Cut.Bond.Create, you do not need anything but the product itself! Note: A special bonus technique will be added at the end – thanks to a creative discussion with Sue, myself, and Joe Rotella.
1. Cut a piece of CBC (Cut.Bond.Create) to the size a little bit larger than your image. Use the blue cut lines to help you get a perfect cut. Use your finger to flick a corner of the CBC and peel back one of the protective liners to expose one layer of adhesive. (Be careful, and hold by end. Fingers have oils in them and can destroy some of the stickiness.).
2. Lay CBC on your work surface with the exposed adhesive side up. Use the liner piece you pulled off as protection as you work (You can lay your hand on it to secure the CBC as you work.). Next you will stamp an image with permanent ink right onto the CBC. An outline or finely detailed stamp with a lot of open areas works best for this technique.
3. Find the colors you want to use to color your stamped image. Sort of like coloring book fill-in, start with the smallest, image to color. Dip the tip of your brush into the Jewelz color of your choice and use the lid to tap some of the extra mica powder off (If you have a large area to do, this is not necessary). Touch the Brush to the area you want to color and lightly move the brush to fill it in. Note: This takes a little practice, you might want to play with a scrap piece of CBC to get the feel of how much powder is needed on the brush. You want to work the color onto the surface so you no longer see the powder but just the shimmery color burnished on the surface. With large spaces, it will take a few dips into the powder, gently placing on the area, and then moving the brush with powder to cover/burnish area with color. Use the 1/2″ brush when necessary.
4. Keep adding color as you go along until you fill the whole area, including the background. Once the coloring is finished, you can use as is – removing the other protective liner and adhering it to a card, scrapbook page, glass, or other surfaces. You can also, cut pieces out of the image (Such as a butterfly or flower), and use the protective liner to save your art ~like a sticker~ to save and use when you need that “added special image” to a project. I have a folder filled with them!
Here are some examples:
Brilliant pigmented, and wonderful for Christmas Cards.
The sticker is the grapes and leaves on the bottle
An additional idea is to use two colors together or blend parts as I did with the woman’s face or the pear on the upper photo. A pink/berry color was used to the woman’s cheeks and to shade the pears. You are only limited by your imagination!!!! Using CBC instead of a transparent substrate lets the texture show and the brilliant pigments dazzle the art. In addition, you can use your die cutting machines (electric or hand) to cut shapes and then remove the top protective liner, stamp/paint, or just paint with Jewelz. Joe Rotella is the wiz with the Zing cutter.
BONUS: Faux Photo Tinting
Joe had asked if you could print on CBC. I was thinking the liner with the idea of Print and Cut with the Zing or other die cut machines. The idea is to print, cut, and then peel the back protective liner to adhere to a surface. I found out you can use your injet printer and print on the protective liner! This is the liner part that doesn’t have the blue measurement lines.
I create my own graphic images and there are a ton of digi stamps on websites. Note: If you print with CBC, when it comes out of the tray printed, let it sit there for about 60 seconds to dry. I have an HP printer and this works beautifully. Once the image is dry, you can do many things to finish the image, plus cut it out with the Zing.
For Jewelz, after I print out the image, I pick up a little Jewelz with the round Perfect Brush and start to burnish the color onto the image. You need so much less powder for this, and the results look like tinted photos! It looks so cool!
Get several Jewelz sets, and some CBC and have some fabulous fun creating your own ephemera images that glimmer and sparkle!
