HTDT? 11.03.09 Using Clear Stamps with Acetate

[20something]

Hello Friends!

I'm here to share a fun tutorial with you on how you can use acetate with your favorite MFT clear stamps to make some really nifty projects!

Before we get in to the fun stuff, bear with me while I go over a couple of basics, okay?

[20something]

First, I want to talk about ink options.

A lot of people shy away from using their clear stamps on acetate, because most people's go-to ink for slick surfaces (Stayz-On) can stain the stamps pretty badly, and the Stayz-On stamp cleaner is rumored to deteriorate your clear stamps. Of course, you can keep right on using Stayz-On if you prefer it, but I've found these other options are gentler on your stamps and still yield great results:

1. Tsukineko's Brilliance Ink (sold in Black and Brown in the MFT store): This ink works great on acetate! When you stamp this ink on paper, it has quite a sheen. When you stamp it on acetate, the sparkle dulls quite a bit (so you don't have to worry about all of your projects looking "blinged-out," if you don't want them to). When you stamp on acetate with Brilliance Ink, you have to have a light touch and a steady hand. If you press too hard or wiggle at all, your stamp will slide on the acetate and blur the image. You also have to either heat-set this ink (see below) OR allow it to dry overnight. As an added bonus, Brilliance Ink also works really well with Copic markers -- it's a multi-tasker!

2. VersaMagic Chalk Ink: There's something about chalk inks that work really well on acetate. They dry to a really dull, rough finish that stays put on the slick acetate. And, your stamp won't slide as much on the acetate as it will with the Brilliance Ink -- meaning, you can have the triple latte before stamping, without worrying that your hands will shake too much! The downside is that the image is not quite as crisp as with the Brilliance, and that you need to use much heavier pressure to make sure you get a fully-stamped image. Again, you need to heat-set it or leave it to dry overnight.

3. Acrylic Paint: Kim has mentioned before that you can apply acrylic paints with a dauber directly to the stamp, using that as your "ink." I haven't tried that personally, but I do have a project for you today that uses acrylic paints on acetate, and they do dry to a nice finish and color. So give it a try!

*A GREAT advantage to using one of the above ink alternatives over Stayz-On is that if you mess up your image in any way, you can just take a disinfecting wipe (or a baby wipe or just plain water my work, too), and wipe your ink right off the acetate and start over! If you try this with Stayz-On, you have to scrub, and there's still a ghost image left where you originally stamped. So for those of us who aren't always perfect the first time around (*cough* ahem, ME!), this helps you save expensive acetate!

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Now, let's talk about heat-setting. Obviously, if you are using high heat and flimsy plastic, you have to be *very* careful to not catch yourself on fire (Kim doesn't want me to kill off her customers!). Here are a couple of tips:

1. Use heat-safe transparencies. You can buy these at office supply stores. The heat-safe ones are generally the ones that are safe for use in copy machines and laser printers and are usually a little thicker than normal transparencies. They also usually have a rougher finish on one side, which helps the ink to have something to grab on to.

2. When using your heat gun, hold it much farther away from the acetate than you do for paper (a good foot, I'd say), and keep it moving constantly.

3. You don't need to heat the ink for nearly as long as you do when embossing. If you're looking really closely (especially with the Brilliance Ink), you can see when the ink gets a dull-ish look to it. that means it's done. But really, just a few seconds should do it.

4. If in doubt, or if all you have is non-heat-safe transparencies, just be patient (it's a virtue!), and allow your image to dry overnight. It will be ready and waiting for you in the morning, without having set off the smoke alarms.

[20something]

Now let's get on to some fun projects!

PROJECT ONE is an old classic, the shaker box, with a new twist. The talented Beate put together a fabulous SCS tutorial on the shaker a while ago. I'm going to recap the basics below as well as show you something else you can do to really bring the acetate and your MFT stamps to life using this neat idea!

For this project, you'll need:
Acetate, Ink, Acrylic Paints, Nestabilities (or Punches or a Pen and Scissors to cut your own shapes), Mounting Tape, Adhesive, Glitter (or Beads or Confetti, etc.), Cardstock

[20something]

1. First, choose your stamp, and choose a shape for your shaker box. For today's project, I chose a circle just larger than my stamped Polar Love image. I used circle Nestabilities to cut out my circle, but if you don't have any you can use punches or just trace a shape on to your acetate and cut it out by hand.

2. Stamp your image on to your acetate (I was using heat-resistant transparencies, so I stamped on the rougher side with VersaMagic Chalk Ink). Heat set.

3. A very important step: TURN OVER your stamped image, so that the back (non-stamped side) is facing up. This will prevent your image from being covered up by paint in the following steps and will make sure the paint doesn't react with the ink and smear.

4. Begin to fill in your stamped outline with paint. My image was not super detailed, so I was able to use a small paintbrush to carefully dab on the color. If your image is smaller or more-detailed, you could use a toothpick or another small, pointed object.

You need to paint in reverse order. That means that whatever is a smaller detail will get painted first, so that when you add in your main large-area colors, the details don't get hidden by the paint, KWIM? For instance, in this project, I painted in the bears' ears and nose first, because I knew that once I added in all the white, I would either not be able to get at the details anymore or would have to be very careful to paint around them.

You want to pretty much blob on your color. Don't try to get fancy and use long prefect strokes. You will most likely need 2 coats (making sure the first coat is perfectly dry before adding a second) to get a full coverage. If at any point you accidentally blob out of the lines, just take a toothpick and gently push the color back inside the lines or scrape the excess away.

Once you have full coverage (you can tell by picking up the acetate and looking at the front --stamped, non-painted-- side of the acetate to see if there are any clear areas showing through), let the image dry (mine took about a half hour).

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Here's a photo of the front side of the acetate, showing what the image looks like all painted!

5. Next, you'll need to cut two shapes that are slightly larger than the shape you stamped on. I chose a scalloped Nestabilities that was one size up from my circle. In one of the shapes, cut out a hole that is slightly smaller than your stamped shape, to make a frame.

6. Apply a good adhesive just outside the inner shape part of your frame piece. You don't need to extend your adhesive all the way to the edge. Just keep it at the very center of the frame. I like tape adhesives as opposed to glue-style ones, because liquid slides around on acetate and can make a mess.

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7. Place your stamped and painted acetate face-down on the adhesive frame, so the stamped, unpainted side is showing through the frame's window. Press to adhere really well.

8. Apply thin strips of foam dimensionals (mounting tape) all around the perimeter of your shape, just inside the outer edge of the frame piece. Be careful to not leave any holes or gaps, or your filling will leak out! Then, dump a small amount of filling of your choice (beads, glitter, etc.) inside the mounting tape border.

9. Carefully, peel the backing off your mounting tape, being sure not to get any of the filling stuck to it (if you do, it can cause a bad bond and make your filling leak out). Stick the last cut-out shape to the foam tape, being careful to line up all the edges.

You have a shaker! When you flip it over to see the front, it should look something like this:

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You can pop your shaker on to a card front for an unexpected greeting, or you can figure out something else fun to do with it. For today's project, I made my shaker in to an ornament. I simply attached a bullnose clip to the top of it and dressed it up a little with some buttons, dots and ribbon and a glittery tag.

See how cool and shiny the painted polar bears look?!

[20something]

Okay, ready for PROJECT TWO?

Next up is a very special kind of card, known as a Magic card. Remember when you were a kid and there were those things that came in magic kits that had a picture that would miraculously turn to color when you pulled on the tab? Ringing any bells? No? Well, stick around, because today I'm going to show you how to make one.

I didn't invent this (I wish I could take the credit for something so cool!), but I have a slightly different way of doing things to make things look a little jazzed up. And it just so happens that the "magic" ingredient in this project is acetate!!!

For this project, you'll need:
Acetate, Ink, Nestabilities (or Punches or a Pen and Scissors to cut your own shapes), Mounting Tape, Cardstock, Staple Gun Embellishments

Here's what the finished card looks like:

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1. To begin, just choose a stamp, stamp it out, and color it. You can use whatever coloring medium, paper and ink that works best for you. There are no rules for this part! Well, maybe one rule.. leave a LOT of white space around your image (especially above it). That will help to make sure you have enough room to make everything line up in later steps.

2. Stamp the same stamp on acetate, using the instructions about ink type and heat-setting listed earlier in the post. IMPORTANT: If you've created a scene by combining multiple stamps in step 1 (like I have, above), you must not change the scene around between steps 1 and 2. Keep the stamps stuck to the block in the exact same position they are in for step 1. Otherwise, when you try to line up the acetate image with the colored image, they won't match up.

(For my image, I wanted it to look like Flopsey's tree was undecorated on the acetate version and decorated on the colored version. Since the ornament is a separate stamp, I first stamped both the Flopsey/tree/star combo on paper and on acetate and later went back and stamped the ornament ONLY repeatedly on the paper version.)

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3. Next, decide on the size and shape of your card. At minimum, your card needs to be about a half-inch bigger than your stamped image, to allow room for all the pieces to work. I wanted lots of room to "play" (embellish), so I chose a 6"x6" base. Cut a mat to fit your card base (mine was about 1/4" smaller than my card base, but you could go larger or smaller, depending on how you want your card to look).

4. Using a Nestabilities, a punch, or a hand-drawn and cut-out shape, make a frame in your mat piece. Your finished acetate image will show through this frame.

5. Cut an additional layer in a contrasting pattern slightly smaller (about 1/8") than your frame/mat piece. This will be the color that shows through your acetate to the front of the card. If you want to have a truly blank-slate look (the traditional magic-card look), this layer can be white. I wanted to funk it up a little, so I went with crazy orange.

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6. Turn your frame layer over, and apply some mounting tape as shown in the picture below. You want to have a thin strip of mounting tape right at the outer edge of the frame (on 3 sides only!). If your frame piece is a lot larger than your stamped image, it also helps to have an additional set of foam tape barriers about 1/4" - 1/2" in from your middle cut-out, so that your slider piece has a channel to glide in and doesn't slide all over the place. Obviously if you make your card to fit more snugly around your stamped image, you won't need this second "barrier" of foam tape.

7. Remove the foam tape backing, and stick on the contrasting-color layer you previously cut out, face-down.

8. Flip this adhered piece over. (In the photo below, the snowman print paper is the back of the orange funky paper -- don't get confused!) Do the same thing you just did in steps 6 and 7: Line the outer edge of this layer with a thin strip of foam tape on 3 sides. Adhere this layer to your card base.

You can see the dimension this creates in the image below. Adding the dimension helps your slider piece to slide in and out without getting caught on anything.

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9. Lay your acetate layer OVER your card base, so that the image is centered in the frame's window. Lightly mark where you'll want to cut your acetate. You want your acetate piece to be at least 1/4"-1/2" (minimum) larger than your frame window, so your slider piece won't slip out. You only need to mark and cut the left and right side and the bottom. For now, leave the top long.

10. Cut on the lines you just made.

11. Lay your newly-cut acetate piece over the colored (paper) image, and line it up so the lines meet exactly. If the lines don't match up exactly, the illusion is ruined, so be careful! Hold the two layers tightly together, and staple through your acetate and paper layers all along the top border of your acetate. This will hold the pieces together, so the images line up.

12. Now, trim your paper layer to match your acetate layer.

13. There's no good way to photograph this next step, so pay close attention! With your card base in one hand and your slider piece in the other, slide the colored-image panel into the top of your card, between the card base and the orange layer. Slide the acetate layer between the orange layer and the frame layer. When you're done, your card layers from bottom to top should be 1. card base 2. colored image panel 3. orange (middle) layer 4. acetate layer 5. frame layer.

So, in a nutshell, the orange layer will be separating your colored image panel and acetate panel. So, when you slide the slider out, the colored image panel will show from behind the acetate panel and look like one image, but when you slide it back in, the colored image panel will "disappear" behind the middle (orange) layer (see the photo, if you're confused).

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14. Once you've fit your slider in to your card, you can figure out exactly how much "excess" to cut off of the top of the slider. Ideally, you should leave a small "tab" (about 1/2") past your card base, so that the recipient has enough to grab on to, to pull the slider in and out. Before cutting any excess off, staple a new row directly below where you plan to cut.

15. Once you've stapled the new row and have made sure that the image still lines up, you can cut above your new line of staples. Then, finish off your slider and card however you want!

To finish off my slider, I just covered it with a tab of contrasting cardstock, rounded the corners, added a circle punch (folded in half) and a ribbon and button accent).

Then, for the card base, I added some blinged-out Bling 'bet letters and left it at that!

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Here's the slider action doing its thing one more time:

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And here's a photo of the two pieces, which you can separate, if you want:


And one of the most fun things about this project is that you can change it up! If you get sick of looking at the plain Flopsey, you can just slide ALL of the layers of the slider between the middle layer and the frame layer, so that the colored-in Flopsey shows all the time!

[20something]

Phew! That was a mouthful! I'm sick of hearing myself "talk," so I'm out of here!

Hope you enjoyed and that you'll consider trying out some acetate projects with MFT clear stamps! If you have any questions, ask away!

[kerryj106]

Fabulous projects Kathy and such great tuts!! You are so right - waiting is totally the hardest part!!

[leslierod]

Awesome tutorial! TFS!

[sara henton]

Great tuts toots!! I've never been able to pull off that magic trick myself, maybe one day

[deborahmegan]

Wow, Kathy! That's all I got, wow. I can't even figure the second one out. Wow.

[20something]

What do you mean you can't figure it out?!!! I just showed you how to do it, you nit!

[dbaker3]

WOW! great job, Kathy! I know how much work goes into the magic card - I've only made 1 and it may remain that way! lol

[ZubRustnBun]

Love the tutorials Kathy!! I've done the 2nd type of card before but with clear acetate. For some reason it really stands more out with your colored acetate. I'm going to have to get some.

[20something]

Hey Heidi! The acetate is still just plain old clear acetate. The only thing that's colored is the patterned papers!

[ZubRustnBun]

LOL. Duh!!! Clearly it was too early for me to be leaving comments!!

[alpha]

very nice!