So, for the last 3 weeks I've been making cards like a crazy person. I've make close to 200 - yes 200. I've booked a table at a craft show this coming weekend. I'm pooped out and can't make another card. I figured I better get started on the altered items I want to take. They never seem to take as long to make as a card does - at least not for me. Sometimes, it can take me about 5 or 6 hours to make a card. I can whip out an altered journal in about 45 minutes. I thought I would start small and work my way up today, so I started with beaded pens. Quite some time ago I bought a jar of sugar beads from Paper Pastimes (Heritage & Elbow). They had a card on display that used them and it looked so nice. Its a pretty big jar and, like glitter, a little goes a loooong way. I don't have very much micro beads on hand, so I thought I would test out the sugar beads to see how the pens look with that. I like the look, but not quite as much as the micro beads. Using the sugar beads gives it more of a frosted look. The micro beads are bigger, so more light gets into the little bead to bounce around and makes the pen look more sparkly. Here is a picture of two of the RSVP pens side by side (the sugar beads on the left, micro beads on the right):
Here are close ups (cropped out of the picture above so they stay in proportion). You can see the size difference of the two beads quite well:
sugar bead pen
micro bead pen
I'll use up what I have of my micro beads first, and then switch to the sugar beads. The sugar beads will make beautiful Christmas cards if you cover a winter scene with them, or covering images of fruit - a lot of things. They were very reasonably priced. I got a 4 or 5 oz jar for $5.95. The label on the jar says the brand name is Be Creative. It looks like the label was printed off a home printer, so its probably packaged and sold by a small Canadian company. I've never heard of Be Creative. I'll have google them. :)
That's all I have right now. I'm under the gun now to get all my stuff finished for the craft show, so probably won't post again until that's over. I've take photos of most of the cards (I've been doing multiples of most of the cards) and will post a few next week.
Take care...
Cat
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6 comments:
Very cute!
They both look really cool! I haven't altered a pen like that (yet) but might for my craft show in November! Thanks for the comparison!!
<Maria
I'm looking forward to a post showing what your finished pens look like! :) Thanks for the comparison.
I also read your post about spilling the sugar beads. That sounds like something I would do, which is *exactly* why I shy away from craft products like this!
Thanks for the nice comparison! I prefer the smaller ones myself. In the US, the smaller ones are called Ultra fine micro beads and pennywisearts.com has them. (not a spokesperson, just a happy customer).
It's nice to have the 2 photos to see the difference!
Cool! I will have to check this out. Thanks for enabling me :)
Thanks for sharing! I love microbeads =) Now I know the difference =) Thanks!
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