Thursday, October 30, 2008

Abalone


Abalone is the newest member of the Opals family and we had plenty of oohs and aahs at Melbourne Paperific a couple of weekends ago for its release. It is a pretty cream (with interference qualities), paler than Sandstone and more luminescent. A good way to describe Abalone is Pearl – it has that soft delicate sheen of good pearls – you almost want to rub it across your teeth to see if it is gritty!!! As a result it will do things that the others will not.
1. Being finer, means that its cover is not so solid for going over pictures. Hence you get that wax over picture look. It gives the appearance of computer enhancing on the photo but I really like it for softening the image
2. Even though it is fine, however, it covers things like chipboard and plywood much better than other light colours. However, we suggest that most of the lighter colours – like Mango, Fool’s gold, Lemonthyme, Tarkine, Blue gum, Wineglass and oddly, Waratah – work better when you use a white pad to put the Opals on rather than the Versamark. The effect is more solid colour. One of our design team (thanks Leanne - take a bow) came up with the idea of adding the stick on sparkles and I think they really make those pieces look very Christmassy.

3. Speaking of using the white as a background, I used white to put the Abalone Opals onto glass. I love strawberry fantasy film over this, but some pieces I did today using the Sunkissed is just like mother of pearl. It is a great foil for the pieces that we do with Currawong as the base. I am sure a jewellery piece using two pieces of glass - one black base and one Abalone – would look fabo. Must have a try when Uni exams finish on Saturday.
4. I love the look of the Abalone with metallics – so the foil lattice works really well for me. I demoed using the foil lattice in Melbourne a few weekends ago and someone watching could not believe that we had created in a few minutes what she had just paid an arm and a leg for at a jewellers. Mwahahahaha – that will teach them!
5. I have also played with the darker colours (like Lady Baron) and then putting the Abalone over the top. It gives a kind of crackle effect which I really like too. Something else to play with in my ‘free’ haha time.
6. Finally we made some lovely Christmas baubles at Melbourne Paperific using snowflakes dipped into glitter. It gives a lovely soft effect - I think it's better than the Snow Gum and much more delicate! If you got a chance to come along and do a make and take you will know the project I am talking about.

Okay so that's a whole pile of ideas to do with the newest Opals colour - I will try to get some photos taken over the weekend (post Management Accounting exam - Saturday 1 p.m. urrgh!) and post them next week so that you can see what I have been wombling about.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Paperific is coming to town...




Normally I don't start humming Christmas tunes till December - but with Paperific around the corner, whats a girl to do. We have four new stamp sets released with your favourite designs in much larger sizes. these are fantastic, my favourite being the Christmas set (the snowflakes in particular). The look book has also come back home looking spiffy from the publishers, and i love it. Much more manageable that a great big scrapbook album!!! Finally, I always hinted we would have something else at the stand - well wait no longer. For those of you who have been following Somerset Studios, Cloth Paper Scissors, Altered Books, Claudine Helmuth, Michael De Mang and all other talented artists - they all use one kind of paint/mediums etc - Golden Paints. These are fabulous fluid acrylics that flow onto paper effortlessly like a glaze. The are highly pigmented and dry quickly. The best thing is you can overlay the colours in thin layers and create out of this world results. My favourites are the Irridescent bronze and the Micaceous Iron Oxide (which actualy has iron particals in it and feels like sandpaper). Finally we have a heap of their wonderful mediums to sell as well including a fabo introduction kit which contains soft gel (gloss) , regular gel (semi gloss), heavy gel (matte), light moulding paste, coarse pumice gel and clear tar gel. inside the box you receive a sample chart with ideas on how to use the mediums. For those of you who have never used gel medium before - it is a great all round glue for collaging papers and heavier materials (metal charms etc). I know these will go quickly - so make sure you stop at the stand and get the colours you want asap!!!
Will fill you in on more Paperific details tomorrow.
Niamh