My Cheat Day, part 1

As a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator I almost never craft with non-SU! products.  I made an exception when I attended the Paperific Expo in Melbourne in late August.  You saw one of the projects I made when I worked to re-create the effect in my Pigment Sprinkles class.  Here are a few more:

I don’t think that this booth’s offerings just weren’t to my taste – I think they only put out papers and ribbons they cleared out of the far recesses of their stash.  To be fair, the purpose of the project was to highlight 2 products you can’t see much of:  one is the the opalescent ink/paint that I applied to the raised part of the embossed frame – it’s got a turquoise tone to it and is very shimmery.  The second product is Sticky Specks Micro Adhesive, which is similar to the Sizzix Adhesive Sheets we used to have, but better for laying items on and picking them up with adhesive on the back.  That’s how we adhered the die-cut sentiment and ribbon & bow.  Seriously considered purchasing this product, but I’m holding out hope that SU! comes out with a version.

This vendor sells both laser-cut chipboard images and sentiments and a cool acrylic paint that has sand in it to give texture.  I daubed a turquoise all over, then added a bit of purple and a bit of white on top.  Fun, but no urge to purchase.

Another vendor with coordinating colour families of inks and 2- and 3-step stamp set with coordinating die.  Again, fun to play with a different image.  

This project is a hybrid – I made the centre square at the Close To My Heart company booth (they’re another U.S.-based paper crafting company in direct competition with SU!).  I deliberately chose paper and colours that I knew I could coordinate with from my SU! stash to make a finished card.  The cool product they were showing off on this project is a set of glimmer markers very similar to the Wink Of Stella pen we have, but they coordinate with their colour families.  I already know that we can get the same effect by using our clear WOS pen and picking up a bit of ink from an ink pad or drop of reinker, then cleaning the brush on scrap paper.  No loss, as far as I’m concerned!

​Tomorrow I’ll show you the last couple of projects I made on my “cheat day”!