Gel Medium + Glitter + Distress Stains = A Lot Of Fun!

Warning: Very Messy!

 I have a few techniques I want to try with Gel Medium. So I bought some Liquitex Gel Medium (my local spotlight just started carrying Liquitex!) and my first technique was with glitter. My friend walked into a thrift shop here and found a bunch of glossy photo paper someone had gotten rid of. I don't know why but I decided it would be perfect to try this on lol.

I taped the photo paper to my craft sheet with repositional tape and then taped the stencil in place with florist tape. I used a 12" Crafter's Workshop Daisy Cluster stencil used a blob of the gel medium. You can spread it with a craft trowel, an old credit card or any other scraper type thing you have. Make sure you get in all the small spaces and then remove stencil carefully and clean immediately with water., otherwise the gel stays there forever, then I sprinkled glitter all over the gel and set it aside to dry.

For the sentiment I used a KaiserCraft stencil I had gotten a long time ago called party time. This time I used regular card stock and repeated the steps above after die cutting a Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Oval to fit over the words.

 On another piece of photo paper I grabbed a bunch of colours of distress stains (from the new 12) and splattered them on the paper. I then used the movers and shapers butterflies as well as an ittty bitty Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Butterfly to die cut the splatter paper (I tried using normal paper but it was too washed out compared to the vibrant photo paper).

When the gel medium is dry I used a paintbrush to remove the excess glitter (if you don't do this your stains end up caked with glitter! (you will still have some but not as much as if you use the brush). At this point you have to work quickly because the photo paper absorbs the colour really fast so if you want the colours to blend a bit I recommend starting in one spot and doing adjacent gaps. I used distress stains to add the colour by gently dabbing over the area I wanted a particular colour.  Once I had coloured it all I began to dry it. It looks like a mess but once dry you can dampen some paper towel and remove the excess stain from the glitter.

I used a plain white cs base to best show off the colours and adhered the flowered photo paper with double sided tape. The butterflies are glued down with glossy accents and the oval with a combo of foam tape and glossy to help it adhere to the glitter. I  have to say the colours are even more vibrant in real life lol. Hard to get accurate pictures of it with all the sparkling! What little girl wouldn't love this :)
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

I am entering this at:
Crafting By Designs - Anything Goes
Love to Create Challenge - All That Glitters
One Stop Craft Challenge - For The Kids
Inspire Me Fridays - Anything Goes
Make It Monday - Anything Goes