Caught in Crystal

Back before Christmas, I purchased a stamp from Jennie at the Artistic Stamper, by our very own Doone,(Donna Louise Rogers), which is a Green Man. I must admit, these are a particular love of mine, Green Men. I have a few around the house, and a couple of stamps already.So, my vague plan has been to stamp him onto a 'caught in crystal' background, then during this weeks WOYWW, one of the bloggers mentioned a bottle of Johnsons  'KLEAR' floor polish,which is used for this.Which prompted me to make a start. The KLEAR is very much like Glossy Accents, but for something like this a LOT cheaper. This post will go up in two parts, as having made the basic sheets, they need a while to dry.
So, what do you need ?

Tissue came in a huge pack from The Works.

 Old newspaper,
 a bottle of Johnsons 'KLEAR' floor polish
transparency sheets, or acetate
 Masking tape (any will do, mines from Poundland)

Inks - reinkers etc
Tissue paper- white is fine, I've used a couple of colours here. I've also heard of people doing this with kitchen towel & facial tissues.
Disposable gloves are a good idea!

First step is to tape your transparency sheet to a couple of layers of newspaper with the masking tape, sealing down the edges well. Now pour on some of the 'KLEAR'- you want enough to be able to spread over the whole surface, best done with your fingers, and its good idea to wear disposable gloves doing this too.

Once its spread over the surface, begin dripping an assortment of inks into it. Best to stick to only 3 or 4, or you'll end up with a muddy mess. I used Distress Re-inkers for this one, using 3 different greens and 1 brown.
I did find the DI reacted it bit strangely with the KLEAR, going a bit thick, that doesn't happen with Alcohol inks, but it still comes out fine.

Here I used red, orange & yellow Alcohol Inks.   

  



 The next step is to move your inks around in the KLEAR- fingers, paintbrush, whatever- just be careful how you mix them so it doesn't turn to an icky mess.


Next you need a piece of tissue paper slightly larger than your coloured sheet. Scrumple it up, then smooth it back out.




 

Now you lay it on top of the inky KLEAR.

Gently start to dab it down, using your fingertips- don't press too hard, or rub or push. The wet paper tears easily, although you can gently push any torn edges back together. Now you need to put it aside to dry, at least overnight. Don't try brayering/rolling over it, it will muddy all the colours together.
 WORD OF WARNING
Even though its taped to newspaper, the ink can seep through- wherever you are going to put it to dry, put plenty of newspaper underneath it. Or lay a large bin bag down and put it on top of that.

You can see here where it leaked through onto my mat.

So thats the basic idea.

The reason its called 'Caught in Crystal', is because before you place the tissue paper down, you can add inclusions- glitter, fibres, beads etc.





I'm hoping you can see I've added glitter in a few different greens to this one.

 This one I've sprinkled crystal glitter in, and I'm going to use yellow tissue on the back.





 The thing with inclusions is, if you make them too dimensional, it becomes extremely difficult to stamp on the smooth side. You can of course do your stamping first, then flip it over and do the crystal part if you want to include beads etc in the crystal. I just like to do the crystal first, as then I can choose where best to stamp my image to best effect, rather than the random effect I'd get doing it the other way.

I've used this a few times, the Christmas Angels I did were made from it and one or two cards I've done in the past have used it.

So that's Part One. I did two green sheets, and one red/yellow, so they are all on one side now drying out.


EDIT:   Okay, I'm stepping back in time from 2020, as I discovered that KLEAR had been discontinued ages ago, then while searching for an alternative, I found out it had actually been re-launched, this time under the name of PLEDGE MULTI SURFACE POLISH.
 Pic here of what you're looking for. 

I mentioned my Green Men earlier, here are a few of them: