Saturday, December 20, 2008

Sneak Peak Revealed


I planned to post sooner, but I've been exhausted as I battle the crud that decided to take over my respiratory system. It's been several weeks since I've felt "good", and I was being treated, but things went downhill earlier this week. Well, the meds are working on me & I'm going uphill. I hope things stay moving that way.
I'm behind on ALL my Christmas projects, but that's OK. I've learned over the years that it's better to take it easy & let things slide to let myself get better.
One project that was put off was working on some Christmas ornaments. I was inspired by an article in the Des Moines Register a few weeks ago. In my last post I showed a sneak peak of my experimentation with my own take on the project.
There were correct guesses that I was making ornaments. Although the inspiration project used glass ornaments, I didn't like the quality of the ornaments I found at the local hobby store. However, they had very nice quality acrylic ornaments that I purchased. The color is applied to the inside of the ornament. I used gold Pearl-Ex powder that was adhered to a thin layer of tacky acrylic coating. I added drops of pearl effect air brush paints and swirled them around. The ornament was left upside down to dry. The original directions coated the inside of the ornament with thinned craft glue which was left to dry until tacky. They only used different colors of Pearl Ex pigments to color the inside. You'll want to wait for it to dry thoroughly before reinserting the hanger. Here are some great instructions I found on the Jacquard site.

This ornament was a challenge to photograph. The surface is very reflective. I took shots near a window that have several reflections. I also used my home-made photo "booth" where I can control the light better, but I still had problems with that set up. I finally settled on nesting the ornament in a silk hydrangea for fun which is the first shot in this post.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ornaments are beautiful, Regina. Wow.

Susan Tuttle said...

Glad to hear you are on the mend! No one should be sick on Christmas.

Your ornament is lovely -- I was wondering what your sneak peek was all about and now I see!

Merry Christmas!

Susan
xo

Anonymous said...

Beautiful result ! Congratulations !

Dear Regina,
Celebrate the joys of this wonderful Christmas time and have fun with your friends, family and loved ones. I wish you all the best for 2009, may all your projects come true !

Kathryn Costa said...

These are gorgeous. I can see how it was a challenge to photograph them. Merry Christmas!
k

Kelly Warren said...

Beautiful ornaments, Regina! I hope you and your ramily have a very merry Christmas and that you are feeling in tip top shape soon.