The design team and I have been working with Perfect Pearls and Perfect Mists this week. Perfect Pearls are mica powders similar to Pearl Ex but have a binder mixed in that helps them remain more stable when brushed over the Perfect Medium ink.
Perfect Mists are unlike other metallic sprays because they have no ink color, simply a shimmery mist that you can combine with any color of spray ink you like.
Sometimes the best products find their way to the backs of our craft drawers and we need a reminder about what they can do to make us get them back out again. The basic procedure for using Perfect Pearls is to stamp your image, brush the Perfect Pearls over the Perfect Medium, and finally brush off the excess to reveal a shimmery image. These look especially fabulous on dark cardstock. The interference set doesn't show much on light cardstock, but the other sets do.
Perfect Mists are unlike other metallic sprays because they have no ink color, simply a shimmery mist that you can combine with any color of spray ink you like.
Sometimes the best products find their way to the backs of our craft drawers and we need a reminder about what they can do to make us get them back out again. The basic procedure for using Perfect Pearls is to stamp your image, brush the Perfect Pearls over the Perfect Medium, and finally brush off the excess to reveal a shimmery image. These look especially fabulous on dark cardstock. The interference set doesn't show much on light cardstock, but the other sets do.
Visit Leigh Snaith-Brunton's blog for instructions on making the fabulous Peacock Box and matching card and using Perfect Pearls with the Magic Metal Technique to create the gorgeous peacock game-piece pendant. Leigh also shows a method on her blog for creating a variation of Perfect Pearls Mists using Distress inks and Perfect Pearls.
Karen McAlpine's Blog has another fantastic example of how beautiful the basic technique looks on black cardstock (post coming soon). You'll also find information on adding a little color behind the Perfect Pearls and see a great example of using Perfect Pearls Mists on her shabby chic example. She was able to add some beautiful metallic green without hiding the image underneath it.
Leslie Turner's blog shows a great example of using different color pearls to color the stamped lines of the image.
Karen McAlpine's Blog has another fantastic example of how beautiful the basic technique looks on black cardstock (post coming soon). You'll also find information on adding a little color behind the Perfect Pearls and see a great example of using Perfect Pearls Mists on her shabby chic example. She was able to add some beautiful metallic green without hiding the image underneath it.
Leslie Turner's blog shows a great example of using different color pearls to color the stamped lines of the image.
Continue reading for instructions on creating the Retro Friends card and the Leaf Stalk Silhouette cards where I demonstrate the following techniques and information: The difference between clear and black Perfect Medium, Mixing colors, using the Lift-Off technique to remove some of the Pearls from an existing image, and finally using the Tsukineko Glue Pad for an extra strong hold.
Stamps Used: Various stamps from Retro Shapes stamp set, Friends Forever verse from Retro Verses stamp set
Other Products: Perfect Pearls and Perfect Medium
Photographing Perfect Pearls cards with flash will show the shimmer but it's hard to see all the detail so I've shown both with flash and without. I created this card to show several neat features of perfect pearls.
1) Perfect Pearls colors look completely different on clear Perfect Medium Clear and Perfect Medium Black ink.
2) You can remove Perfect Pearls after applied with a second stamping with Perfect Medium.
3) Don't be afraid to mix colors.
On the blue back ground I stamped the top row of the retro square background using clear Perfect Medium and bottom row with black Perfect Medium and then covered both rows with the same color: Forever Green from the jewels set. On the white cardstock I stamped the large retro square once in clear and once in black and then covered both stamped images with Perfect Gold from the Metallic set.
The next neat thing you can do is ink an image with Clear Perfect Medium and stamp over the original image to remove Perfect Pearls. See the little star bursts with no Perfect Pearls? This can look amazing when stamping a background stamp over bold image. Just keep in mind that Perfect Medium will act as a watermark ink on some papers so the second image may show beyond the original image. If you want to stamp a watermark background over your Perfect Pearls images WITHOUT removing the mica off the foreground, images I have a trick for that I used on the next card so keep reading.
Don't be afraid to mix colors. If you look at the first image you'll see I used a different color on the "forever" than I did on the "friends". I wanted a blueish green for the "forever" word but only had a brilliant jewel-tone blue. I added just a little of the Forever Blue to the lid of the Forever Green and mixed in some Forever Green and got my perfect color. I used such small amounts that I didn't feel bad about dumping out the excess so I didn't contaminate the green.
Stamps Used: Leaf Stalk Silhouette from the Botanical Silhouettes stamp set, French Script background and Crackle backgrounds stamps from the Backgrounds for All Occasions set and the Thinking of you stamp from the Verses - Feel Better Set.
I've found that the glue pad actually provides a more secure hold than Perfect Medium. It is so secure, in fact. that once you use the Perfect Pearls over the glue pad ink you can't lift it back off with the lift-off technique used in the previous card. This is handy when you want to apply a watermark background behind your Perfect Pearls images. You can see I stamped the leaf stalk image three times with the Glue Pad and added Perfect Pearls from the Jewels and Metallics collections. After a few minutes I stamped the Crackle Background with VersaMark watermark ink (see image above) and no Perfect Pearls were lifted away.
Thank you for these very helpful tips. I just purchased some perfect pearls and have never used them before. I will have fun exploring new techniques.
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