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Using Interference Paints For Card Making

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A few years ago at a craft show in Glasgow, I was demonstrating for Personal Impressions and opposite my booth was the Daler-Rowney stand where a gentleman was creating masterpieces with acrylic paints. As the day passed, I became more and more intrigued in a certain set of paints that he had and was convinced that they would look great on cards. After maintaining a significant level of small talk throughout the whole expo, I was hopeful that he might give me a discount should I wish to buy a set. BUT guess what… when we were packing up, he came over to my stall and handed me his demo set saying that he said that he could tell that I wanted them by the way that I was gawking at them from across the aisle. Awesome!

The ‘Shimmering colours for acrylics’ paint set by Daler-Rowney is a set for creating shimmering metallic effects. The four interference colours in the pack (red, green, blue & gold) produce a magical shimmering colour when applied on dark background, and the result is astounding. Although the colours can be used on light backgrounds, it is wise to be aware of the fact that the colours are pale and discrete, but as soon as it touches a black background, the colour is rich and powerful. After an hour or two playing with my new toys, I became more familiar with the paints and their effects so I started thinking about how they could be used on cards.

Butterfly Card
I knew as soon as I laid my greedy little paws on this paint set that it would work great for painting pretty pearlescent butterflies. So today I want to talk you through how I used these iridescent paints to create this beautiful card.

First I heat embossed a butterfly background stamp from Do Crafts unto black cardstock. Admittedly this was a little tricky as the powder and background were the same colour, but if you work in a well lit environment this makes life a lot easier. With a small paint brush I set to work painting with ease the little butterflies and ladybugs on the embossed design. For variety, I coloured some with a thicker layer of paint, which gave a more intense colour. Once all the creatures were painted it was time to colour the background. Taking a small piece of sponge dipped into the gold paint, I dabbed over the black cardstock and watched the black embossed design pop out like magic. Once the whole background was the golden colour that I wanted, I blotted the design with a piece of kitchen towel to make sure that no gold paint stayed on the embossed image. Happy with the result, I trimmed the design, matted it unto black card and accented the edge with a gold border peel off sticker.

Happy Accident
As I was poking through my stash to find the border stickers, I stumbled across butterfly peel offs which sparked an idea that I just had to explore. I took four identical butterfly peel offs and stuck them firmly unto black cardstock. Next I painted each of the little tiny wing sections with the interference paints, making sure that I painted each pair alike. Once dry I carefully cut around each of the butterflies using my decoupage scissors and a lot of patience (which was especially challenging when cutting around the antennae). I took a pair of butterflies, one went through my Xyron and I placed it onto the card as a sticker, and the other I folded in half. Using 3mm sticky tape along the crease, I stuck this on top of the first butterfly to create a 3D effect. I really like this effect as the wings can be eased up from the card for display purposes, but can also be flattened for easy posting.

Perhaps you will give this technique a try yourself as it is always fun getting messy with paint. I discovered another fun technique using these Iridescent paints that I want to share with you but you will just have to wait until the next post to find out what it is.

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