Hi ladies, thank you for your continued patience as Rebecca and the programmers continue to figure out the bugs that are plaguing the site. Becca actually has one of the programs creators working on it as well, trying to find that needle in a mountain of gibberish (I’m sure that’s what the source code would look like to most of us). Don’t give up; the site will be back up and running. Coincidentally the message in our church service today was all about patience… I don’t think it is something that many of us have enough of. Ugh, I’m not sure if adage ‘practice makes perfect’ will work for patience.
On another note: We all have a pile of metal embellishments sitting around; they were all the rage a few years ago, and we had to have them, stock piled them, ooh-ed and awe-ed at them, and we maybe even used some of them. Time has passed though and we may have grown tired of them, and they are ready for the scrap pile (hah-hah). I’ve come up with a list of ways to breathe new life into your old metal embellishments and keep them out of the recycling bin:
1) Paint; especially on textured metal paint will add a wonderful touch. You can even try two different colours and rub the second coat off a little bit more so it only shows in the deeper crevices of the embellishment. Don’t forget some of your metallic paint either for a (ie) gold on silver look.
2) Stamp with StazOn. If your metal is smooth you can stamp a design or texture (if the image is bigger than your embellishment) onto it using StazOn ink. Or just rub some of the ink onto the embellishment like you would with the paint.
3) Add rub-ons. Remember a while back some of the companies came out with rub ons specifically designed to go on the biggie brads. Why not try it with other metal items as well!
4) How about just adding a little accent such as a flower, button, a piece of ribbon, trims or fiber, rhinestones, pearls, tiny die cuts, just like we would on our chipboard. The possibilities are endless. Gasp, we could even add another small metal embellishment.
5) Alcohol inks: Janet challenged us to use these. They can be used on any non-porous surface; so don’t forget to try them on your metal embellishments.
6) Embossing, you can either stamp with Versamark and emboss or you can heat the entire embellishment and dip it in the embossing powder to change the look of your metal embellishments. Make sure you handle the hot item with tweezers or you might seriously burn yourself.
7) Micro beads: Micro beads come in many colours as well as clear which will allow the background colour to show through. You can adhere them with Glossy Accents, Crystal Lacquer or the like, or just use thin coating of good quality liquid glue.
8) Glitter: There are a lot of glitter-covered brads out there these days but you could certainly transform some of your own by covering it in a thin layer of glue and dipping it in the glitter. Don’t just leave it at brads though; the same technique can be extended to so many of your metal embellishments.
9) Fun flock is a new thing that is all the rage at the moment. Take advantage of it and cover up some of your old metal stuff. You can either stamp a design or cover the whole surface depending on the look you want.
10) Patterned paper, magic mesh, fabric, stickers or photos: We could certainly entirely or partly cover up the metal embellishment with any of these. How about tracing a template of the item and cutting it out slightly smaller so that when the items are adhered you are left with a thin edge of the original metal embellishment.
11) Dimensional paint and stickles: I think we all still love stickles and they would make a great addition to our metal embellishments. For myself the dimensional paints have always been right beside them. They are a great alternative especially when we’re dealing with masculine subjects where you can get a little too glitzy.
Here are a few more non-acid free alternatives you can use if that is not an issue for you. Go to your make up cabinet and dig out all those fun and funky nail polishes you use, the selection these days is amazing! Deco art also has paint that looks like stone finish and there is a large selection of various spray paints as well. Maybe your significant other or child likes to put together model cars or planes etc. and has a nice stash of paints (s)he’ll let you use. Check to see what you have laying around the house and get creative.
If you have the opportunity to use it I would love it if you left a link to your LO in the comments section so I can go and admire it.
