Exchange Day - Golden Glass Bead Gel

Hi everyone, Ruth here with this weeks ATP Exchange day. This week I've been having fun with Golden Glass Bead Gel....which some may have noticed I rather like using! I've created two journal pages, incorporating a couple of my 'explorations' that I'm going to share with you. Warning this is a photo heavy post...

Golden Glass Bead Gel is another way of creating texture in your projects. It's an acrylic medium that incorporates tiny glass beads in it. If you zoom in you can see how small the beads are. It dries clear and is surprisingly flexible once dry. It still has some 'spring' to it, probably because of the gel medium it's in. I even managed to stitch through it on the journal pages.....going very carefully mind you.

I started off by spreading it through stencils onto plain manilla tags. I used TCW stencil Garden Gate and the Prima doily stencil and you may notice on the first tag that I hadn't cleaned my stencil very well!

You can see how it's starting to dry clear in this next photo.

Once dry they can be coloured in a variety of ways.

On this tag I've used a wash of Fresco paint in Beach Hut. Inks or translucent paints will still show the base of whatever is underneath the bead gel.

Some of the paint will pool around the gel creating more definition.

On this I've used Distress Inks in tattered rose and salty ocean but decided I wanted more colour and used Prima colour blooms in Iris and Glistening waves on top.

A nice effect is created because the Distress Inks react with water based products.

Of course anything opaque will cover up whats underneath but can also give more definition to the beads. I've used treasure gold on half the tag and I have to admit this effect is a favourite.

Lastly on translucent's you can colour the surface below and then accentuate with a darker ink. I had some Cinnamon Brown Luminarte silk acrylic glaze on my mat and swiped 2 tags with it, one is slightly lighter as I had mixed some water with it to mop up.

Using walnut stain Distress Ink on the tag on the right.

Stamped images can also be seen clearly as the bead gel is so fine. So fun with translucents but something I hadn't tried before was mixing it with paints. So a small amount of various paint was mixed with bead gel.

Sorry bit of a blurred photo. The left hand tag has on the left French Roast (translucent) and bottom right Squid Ink (opaque). The top right of the tag has Golden acrylics Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold (!). The right hand tag, top left System 3 gold acrylic paint and bottom right is cinnamon brown Luminarte silk acrylic glaze.

This one textured but matt....going to change that.

Lovely shiny finish but going to improve that as well.

I've painted the black part of the tag with some gold acrylic and used a dark spray on the gold and a gold spray on the cinnamon brown. The sprays are a mix of dark - Dylusion chocolate and Nutmeg Luminarte primary elements and Lemon Zest Dylusions and Sunflower Luminarte primary elements.

I used some Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint on the centre of this tag. I've also highlighted the peaks with some black archival. Hope you can zoom in and see the lovely texture. These are only my first 'experiments' and I am no expert but hope you've enjoyed seeing the possibilities of this product.

Hope you've stayed with me as I'd just like to quickly share the journal pages I created.

I have to say this is inspired, influenced by a France Papillon recent Journal on Monday she did.

 2 pieces of Chatsworth paper cut to fit my Finnabair vanity Journal. The blue is kitchen roll that was used to mop up some Turquoise Dylusions and then stamped with Sarah Naumann stamps (sets ESN10 and ESN11) in walnut stain and vintage photo Distress ink. The man is from the Tim Holtz Mercantile set.

A wash of snowflake fresco first, some matte medium through TCW chicken wire stencil and Rock candy distress glitter on top, dried and then sanded back slightly. Beach Hut paint then over the glitter.

Another lace stencil from Finnabair (lace doilies and glitter on a mans page?...I think so!). I tore a piece of copy paper in half and then framed the area I wanted to stencil and placed the stencil on top. I've used the same cinnamon brown bead gel mix. various stamping in the Distress Inks mentioned. Some drippage with the sprays used earlier. Fresco paint splats in white, little black dress and beach hut. I've also used Prima Blooms glistening waves drips.

Chit chat stickers and unfortunately I picked up a thick posca pen before I'd realised so the outlines are quite bold...no mistakes in art though! Some dyed ribbon.

 The tag finished off with some string, TH vintage ephemera, and a blog friend kindly sent me some doilies and I've used a piece at the base of the tag (thanks Julie!). Hope you enjoyed a rather long post and are tempted to explore some of the more unusual texture pastes. Don't forget another week to enter our Halloween challenge.

Thanks for stopping by.
Ruth
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