Mixing Micro Beads – My Recipe For Success

Here is a close up picture of my Vintage Fat Book page showing more of the detail and dimension.

I used 1/8” O’So Sticky Tape all around the edges and coated it with a mixture of micro beads in many colors both translucent and opaque.  Because fat books get handled a lot and pages rub against each other, I painted a coat of clear Diamond Glaze over the beads to help them stay on strong.

Micro Bead Mixology

When I’m creating a mixture of micro beads for a project I always look at the colors that are already there.  In this case I saw primarily brown, orange and pink.  So I started with just a little bit (maybe 1/4 teaspoon) of each color from my shelf that is in those color families.  Copper opaque, orange translucent, rose, brown translucent and brown opaque. I liked it but wanted to bring out the pink more so I added some cranberry translucent to the mix. 

Beads don’t have to be the exact same color as your project to be a good accent.  They just need to be from the same family of color.  Once I had the colors figured out I played a little with the ratio, adding in more cranberry and copper since those were the primary family of colors for my design.  The last little thing I like to do is toss in a scoop of randomness.  If you look closely you’ll see little bits of blue and purple opaque. I think that they work nicely when used in tiny amounts so as not to over power the main colors.

So tomorrow will be the next page from our fat book swap – stay tuned!

Hugs, Suzanne

Sweeet Friend

Clear micro beads are so doggone difficult to photograph!  If I use a flash they reflect back and all you see is a bright spot and if I don’t flash then sometimes the beads don’t show at all.  Good thing YOU have a great imagination!  For instance, imagine that this cupcake is sparkly and textured with ultra fine clear micro beads.  Actually, it is!

PWA designer Jean Sunderman created this “sweet” card with lots of pretty paper layers.  To bead an image (like this cupcake) all you need to do is stamp the image onto the paper side of O’So Sticky Tape and cut out.  Then place the O’So sticker directly over the image and dip into clear micro beads.  It’s just that quick and just that easy.

When choosing what size clear beads to use it’s important to take into account how detailed the image being beaded is.  Something with very fine or light lines and features will probably look best with ultra fine beads.  If the image is big and bold you can get more sparkly and distortion with the regular size (.5mm) micro beads.  If you just aren’t sure then go with the mini micro beads, it’s a pretty safe middle of the road size.  :)

Hugs, Suzanne

3-D Zots

When I was at the stamp show in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho last month I took a class from Mary Jo McGraw and she used a new to me “beadnique”.  Imagine that!  So simple too!  Got 3-D Zots?  Julie Imsland does!   I borrowed hers to show you what the box looks like.

All you need to do to be successful with this technique is stick the Zots on something,( in this case I used flowers) and put the sticky dot in the centers.  Once in place just smush micro beads into the Zot and tap off the excess, viola! 

Both of the flowers above were done using stamps from Outlines.

This next example was made using the Tim Holtz Tattered Floral die cut with fabric and the plastic packaging that the die came in.  Following the tutorial from Laura Denison’s Following the Paper Trail YouTube video I glued the fabric to the plastic and let the glue dry.  Then I heated the plastic until it was soft enough to mold.  A 3-D Zot in the center finishes it off quite nicely. Besides the obviously cool design look, I love that they resemble those old time jelly candies with the little crunchy colored dots on the outside that my grandma used to keep in her candy jar. Does anyone know what they were called?  

Another fun thing about the Zots is that they stay gooey underneath so you can poke them and they squish a little.  It’s a tactile thing, I just can’t help myself.  Ü

Hugs,  Suzanne