Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend - Hels' Sunday Stamper Challenge

Hi All!  Hels' challenge this week revolves around embossing, and UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel), which is lovely stuff.  Her challenge is Some Like It Hot (because you have to melt UTEE/embossing powder to make it work).  When I heard that, I thought of Marilyn dancing with all the chaps, and singing Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.  Yes, yes, I know, that's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but there's no accounting for how my neurones work! So this is my entry for that challenge.

The painted background is meant to evoke a red silk dress, or a theatre back drop.  This is acrylic paint in a few layers, including the lovely London Bus from PaperArtsy, which is so tranlucent! Mmmm.

The background stamps are shadow stamping using Brilliance, so it is a bit hazy, intentionally!  The words are stamped and heat embossed.  When that was dry and cool, I used a quickie glue pen and some ultra fine glitter to add a few more sparkles.  You can never have enough bling!!

On to the UTEE. There are a couple of different mixes in there, so I am not quite sure what colours made which element.  The beads and the frame are both made using a Gedeo Silcon mould.  You might spot that there is glass glitter in there, too, just in case any more bling was needed!  I wasn't sure if it would melt into the UTEE, so I tried sprinkling it into the mould on for the frame and one of the strings of beads, and adding it into the UTEE for the other string of beads.  It definitely has more impact by sprinkling it into the mould.

Inside the frame are my diamonds, which I discovered in a home decor shop, a box full of different sizes for two quid.  Don't think they are real...but they ARE shiny!!  I've adhered them with silicon glue - what a pong!!   Because this goes on cloudy and only goes clear when dry, you have take a bit of a leap that there's enough diamonds in there, to cover it all.  I am a little disappointed that actually the silicon glue isn't THAT clear.  That may be because it has only been drying for 24 hours, and there is some more drying to do, OR I guess, it may be that I crammed so many diamonds onto that area that the air couldn't get at it! 

While I had the Melt Pot out, I thought I would have a go at making a mould from a pair of cufflinks I had, which are bees.  So I mixed up some Siligum (this has two different plasticine-like doughs, which you mix well, then you press your item into it, and count to 10.  Remove your item, and bingo!  A mould!!  I haven't used Mould and Pour, but I guess it works in the same way.) I used the bits of UTEE after making the frame and beads for the bees, because they didn't take too much, and I didn't really mind if they didn't match, because I wasn't going to use them on THIS project.  So now I have two moulds for bees!  A good luck symbol for the chinese!

Hope you like!


Materials used

Substrate: Stamps Away Medium Tag

Paints and inks
DecoArt Americana: Lamp Black, Light Buttermilk, True Red
PaperArty Fresco Finish: London Bus
Brilliance: Rocket Red, Mineral
Versamark dazzle: Frost

Stamps
Stampin Up: Broadsheet Alphabet
Stampers Anonymous: Sketch Elements CMS054
Hero Arts: Happy Upper Case LL243


Bling and other stuff
Ranger Melt Pot
Ranger UTEE: Platinum, Clear
Cosmic Shimmer UTEE: Silver Shine, Blue Raspberry
Cosmic Shimmer Embossing Powder: Viola Black Aurora
Stampendous Embossing Powder: Detail Gold, Detail Silver
Stampendous Frantage Glass Glitter: Black
Martha Stewart Glass Glitter: Silver
Gedeo Silicon Mould: Frames/Picture Frames
Art Glitter: Heart Medallions (gold)
Silver glitter (unnamed)
Siligum
Quickie Glue pen