I had an awesome weekend at The Paperie Fall Retreat with all my buddies, playing, crafting, laughing, drinking, demoing…

The item I demoed is a new one for the Paperie and after my trip to Orlando in October, it was one that I knew had to be in the store! I was super excited when it showed up in time for the Retreat…

This is going to be more of a quick and simple overview introducing you to
Silks than an actual tutorial but I hope you like it anyway!

You’re going to need:

Silks, Sticky Back Canvas, Craft sheet, paint brushes, Archival Ink, and stamps.

To begin, Silks are a Luminarte product, as in the people who make my beloved Twinks, so you know they’re going to be awesome and shimmery! They’re a water based acrylic glaze which means they’re not permanent or opaque but really fluid and translucent – and shimmery!

For the first tag (sorry there are no pictures of the process, my camera battery died and my little point and shoot just wasn’t up to the challenge, sad) I simply painted the Silks over the Sticky Back canvas, blending as I went, and let them dry, making a background. The beauty of these paints is that they don’t mix together and make mud colour – they just blend and stay gorgeous!

Once it was dry, I stamped the images in Archival Ink and then painted them in with more colours of Silks. As you will see, no muddy colours, just awesomeness! And great shine!

The second tag I made so I could show you how the Silks act as a resist. I stamped the same images in Jet Black Archival on the Sticky Back Canvas and heat set them…

…then painted them in with the same colours of Silks as the first tag:

This looks all wet and messy because I have found that on canvas the paint covers better and easier if I wet the fabric first. You do want to be careful because if you use too much water (I have 4-5 layers of paint and water on the house) you will get this wicking of the paint happening. Not an issue for this tag, I have plans to disguise it and the style of the stamp lends itself to an imperfect effect anyway.

Once the paint was dry, I misted over it with Dylusions Spray Inks and then misted lightly with water to blend them a bit.

You can already see that the Silks are resisting the sprays and keeping their intense colours – love it!

I’m impatient, so I used my cloth to blot up the excess moisture and then heat set the tag:

You can also see that the shimmer comes through and resists the mist too – so cool!

And a good black mixed media pen disguises the wicking flaws!

I didn’t do anything with the tags except add crinkle ribbon because I really just like them as they are. The ribbon for the first tag was painted with the Silks and it has awesome shimmer plus is just a little stiff – enough to hold some shape.

See the top of the tag? Easy and cool technique that I’ll try to remember to do next week!

Here’s the first tag – painting Silks over Silks on canvas:

I love the softness and overall shimmer of this one.

And the second tag – Silks resist with mist:

I think this is my favourite – I love the contrast of the shimmer paint and the matte mist and the colours are amazing!

Click on any of the pictures to make them bigger and see the shimmer a little better – I only wish I had the skills to really photograph it!

Let me know if you have played with Silks and show me what you’ve done – I’d love to see it! And if you don’t have any, go get some, really, they’re worth it!

S.