We just love glimmer mists! They add the perfect hint of glittery color to any project, and really make your page stand out.
While playing around in the craft room today, we decided to try mixing up some homemade glimmer mists. Experimenting with the different color combinations was so addicting! The end result was fantastic, and it really is very similar to a store bought glimmer mist.
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You will need:
Empty Spray Bottles – we used Ranger Inkssentials Mini Misters
Alcohol Ink – we used Ranger Adirondack Alcohol Inks
Ranger Perfect Pearls Pigment Powder
Water
Mixing it up is really simple. First we filled our mini mister approximately 3/4 full with water. Then we added 8 drops of alcohol ink. You can add more or less depending on how vibrant you want the color to be. Next add some Perfect Pearls (in the picture below you can see approximately how much we used). A mini spatula or popsicle stick works well for scooping it out. We recommend using two different colors of Perfect Pearls in your homemade glimmer spray. Adding two colors gives your spray a little more dimension and a nice shine .
Here’s the combination we used for the brown homemade glimmer mist:
8 drops of Ranger Adironack alcohol ink, color “Ginger”
One pinch each of Perfect Pearls colors “Perfect Bronze” and “Perfect Green”
Mixed into a mini mister spray bottle 3/4 full of water
Here’s the combination we used for the blue homemade glimmer mist:
8 drops of Ranger Adironack alcohol ink, color “Stream”
One pinch each of Pefect Pearls colors “Perfect Pearl” and “Forever Blue”
Mixed into a mini mister spray bottle 3/4 full of water
We used our homemade glimmer mists to color a couple Petaloo Color Me Crazy flowers. If you’ve never used the Petaloo Color Me Crazy flowers, they’re pretty neat. They’re specifically made to be misted, inked, painted, or however else you can think to color them.
We also decided to try doing a little watercolor painting with it. We know you can use store bought glimmer mists for watercoloring, and wanted to see if our homemade version would hold up. We use Bee Watercolor Paper, and to use the glimmer mist (store bought or homemade) for watercoloring, we just spray a few squirts of plain water onto a plate, and a few squirts of glimmer mist in a separate puddle on the plate. dip your brush into the water then into the glimmer mist, and paint.
On the picture below, we stamped a tree branch image onto our watercolor paper. We used Staz On ink in color “Timber Brown” for the stamp. Staz On inks are great to use with watercoloring, because the ink is solvent based and won’t smear when you watercolor on top of it, unlike a pigment based ink. We watercolored the branch on the left with our homemade glimmer mist, and for the branch on the right, we used our store bought glimmer mists (Lindy’s Stamp Gang shadow spray in “Long John’s Silver” for the branch, and Lindy’s Stamp Gang starburst spray in “Delphinium Turquoise” for the flowers). As you can see, there isn’t much difference between the homemade and the store bought.
It’s important to use Perfect Pearls over a different pigment powder when making your own glimmer mist, because Perfect Pearls already has a binder mixed into it. This means that once you combine the Perfect Pearls powder with water, it will adhere to your surface. If you use a pigment powder without a built in binder, you will have to add a binder yourself or the glimmer will rub right off after you spray it. You will also want to shake the bottle before spraying each time because the Perfect Pearls powder settles at the bottom.
So what do you think? Have you tried making your own glimmer mists? We’d love to hear your experience with them, and any color combinations you created.
This post is part of a series of scrapbooking techniques called Scrap Basics. To see more Scrap Basics, click here.
If you use this technique on a project, we’d love to see it! Please share with us in our comment section or upload a picture to our Facebook page, and we may highlight your craft in a future post!
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