Okay all you Glitter Girlz!!!

Here's the scoop on the glitter mixture I use. I LOVE sparkly things - especially glitter. But who can afford to have every color of stickles on hand? Not me --I'd rather save my money for new rubbah! So I make my own homemade stickles and use it on almost all my cards!

Here's the secret... I have a little plastic paint pallette I bought at the craft store for $1. I fill one of the holes with Crystal Effects (picture shows Diamond Glaze - they work the same). The amount you use depends on how much mixture you need. If I'm just doing accents, I usually use about a dime size amount of Crystal Effects. Most times I use a clear mixture, but if I want a color I then add the desired re-inker (usually only one drop or it gets too dark) and a pinch of ultrafine glitter (I use Dazzling Diamonds)... okay, I'm glitter happy, so I usually use more than a pinch! ;) I mix it all with the end of my paint brush and then wipe the brush off with a paper towel before it dries. (If you look closely at the pic you can see I'm not so good at remembering this step! LOL!) Anyways, you're looking for the mixture to have a stickles-like consistency. If it's too runny, add more glitter. Too thick add more Crystal Effects.

I am not so good with getting an even flow using a bottle applicator, so I prefer the precision of a paintbrush or stylus. To apply on an image like Sprinkle's crown I use a very fine detailed watercolor brush. (Make sure it's one you can devote just to this technique, since it's never going to lose all of it's stiffness after you've used it with the Crystal Effects.) The trick when painting with this mixture is to work from the larger areas to the smaller ones. For the dotted accents on my scallops and around ovals, I usually pierce where I want the glitter to go, so it has a guide to kind of settle into. Then I use a double ended stylus and dip the larger end into the mixture and then dot on each piercing. For the Sprinkle card, I was too lazy to find my stylus, so I just used my watercolor brush. Either way works just fine, but I think the stylus makes the dots look more uniform. You want to use enough mixture that there is a ball of it on the paper so when it dries you can't see the piercings.

I suppose you could clean out the pallette while the mixture is still wet, but I'm usually in the thick of things, so I let it dry and then it peels off in one big glittery clump. There you have it - homemade stickles. Happy glittering, sistahs!!! :)