Mini Mitten Shakers Embellish Frosty Acrylic Sign

HiYa,

Tami here on the blog with you today to share a frosty, wintery, shimmery project. This project features some techniques to use on Clear Scraps acrylic products; in this case, the 12 X 12 Acrylic Sheet. Acrylic is a very versatile item to use in your crafting. You can paint it, ink it - alcohol inks are great, stamp it, diecut it just to name a few.

One thing I like to do with acrylic, is to layer different mediums on the front and on the back. This created dimension and allows you to "layer" products that might not play well together, or might not achieve the same look as when they were both added on the same surface. I also added a piece of Silver Metallic Foil Board to the back to reflect light and give the piece a shimmery look. Mini Shaker Box Mittens filled with Sprinkles Winter Flake Mix add a fun accent to the sign...

I started by removing the protective film from ONE side of the Acrylic Sheet. Then I added drops of aqua alcohol ink and swirled it around the entire sheet: you don't need to cover it completely; let dry. Then I added drops of white pearl alcohol ink all over to look like snowflakes. Let this side dry completely.

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Turn Acrylic Sheet over and remove protective film from the other side. Use 6" Nordic Snowflakes and 12" Ice Crystal Snowflakes stencils with white paint and a sponge pouncing brush to add snowflakes over the front on the Acrylic Sheet. A few hints to make this step easier. When using any stencil where the designs are close together, but you only want to use portions of the stencil, use tape to mask off the designs close to the one or ones you want to use. Also put a piece of tape to cover an edge of a stencil when a design you want to use it close to it. And be sure the designs you add have dried before repositioning your stencil to avoid smearing...

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Once the snowflakes have dried, I added a frosty edges to my sign by pouncing white paint around the edges...

While the paint dried, I started working on the quote for the center of my sign, "we are all like snowflakes unique and one of a kind'. I used a word processing program to space the wording as I wanted along with editing fonts and sizes. I tested the sizes by cutting apart the printed quote and fitting it on the sign along with the mittens. Once I was happy with the spacing and font size, I printed the quote out on a sheet of clear plastic film...

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Next, it was time to embellish the Mini Mitten Shaker Boxes. I traced both mittens on a piece of silver foil board, cut them out and adhered the to the bottom layer of the shaker boxes...

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I wanted a stripe on the mitten, so I grabbed some washi tape. I placed strips of striped washi tape on the top layer of the shaker around the hand part of the mitten, then trimmed off excess with scissors. I used a more solid design washi tape around the cuff portion. The shakers were then assembled except for the acrylic and top layers and filled with Sprinkles. After filling, the acrylic and top layers were adhered on the shakers...

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Now it's time to put it all together. One thing to remember when working with clear acrylic is that glues or adhesives used to layer the pieces will need to be covered or they will show. You could also punch holes and use ribbon or twine to hold pieces together, but for this project, I was using a tape runner. I cut an 8 X 8 piece of silver foil board for the back, and trimmed my quote down a bit. To determine where to place the adhesive, I laid the quote and the mittens UNDER the acrylic sheet - with the snowflake side up. I arranged them, then used a marker to add small dots at the centers of the mittens. That is where I placed my adhesive to adhere the foil board to the back and the quote to the front.

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I used Zip Dry to adhere the mittens to the sign, making sure their placement covered the adhesive...

If you want to take these techniques a little further, why not try embellishing two or more acrylic sheets and layering them! you could even use foam tape to adhere the sheets together to add even more dimension to your project!

Thanks for visiting the Clear Scraps Blog today, please come back soon for more inspiration!

SUPPLIES:

Clear Scraps: 12 X 12 Acrylic Sheet, Mini Shaker Box Mittens, 6" Nordic Snowflakes Stencil, 12" Ice Crystal Snowflakes Stencil and Sprinkles Winter Flake Mix 

Other: The Crafter's Workshop: Spun Sugar Heavy Body Acrylic Paint, Ranger Alcohol Inks: Pool and Pearl, Grafix: Silver Metallic Foil Board and Computer Grafix Clear Inkjet Sheets, Beacon Adhesives: Zip Dry and Tape Runner

Tools: Alcohol Ink Applicator, Foam Sponge Pouncing Brush, Blue Painters Tape, Scissors, Permanent Marker  and Trimmer