Wedding Pearls by Susan Roberts

Oh it is so much fun to be at Ellen's studio and rummage through her supplies!!  *insert gleeful giggle here*  I had never used Liquid Pearls before.  So when I saw them sitting there, I knew I was going to have to give them a try.

I found a cool tutorial by Laurie Wilson with a great idea on how to keep the pearls a uniform size, evenly spaced and straight.  Check this tutorial out.  She suggests that you use your hole punch(es) to create a template.  I decided to use an Ornare Border Stencil to give me a guide for punching.

To make sure that none of the Liquid Pearls found it's way under the template and to insure that the template didn't move as I worked, I used masking paper.  And to make sure the entire strip of paper didn't become stuck on the card stock, I folded both ends under.  This gave a place to grip on both ends allowing me to pull up evenly.  (If you don't have masking paper then a thin piece of paper such as printer paper could also be used.)

I decided to experiment with a couple of different sizes of hole punches.  Placing it on the card stock, the Liquid Pearls were applied.

As soon as I was finished making the pearls, I pulled the template away from the card stock.  You do not want the pearls to set as there is some overlap onto the template.  If the pearls set/dry, then you can't pull the template off without pulling and misshaping the pearls.  (Yes, I know this for a fact!  lol)  After pulling the template off, you may need to rework the pearls a little to get rid of any points that may have been caused by the lifting of the template.

Many moons ago I took a cake decorating class.  Making these pearls reminded me of making rounded shapes with icing on a cake.  In order to get a rounded top instead of a point you have to first STOP squeezing the bottle so that the flow of Liquid Pearls stops.  Then, with the bottle tip, "catch" the point and swirl it around the outer part of the "blob" (technical term) and tuck it in at or near the bottom of the pearl.  (Think of how you twist your hair into a bun tucking it at the base to hide the ends.)  Here are some nicely rounded pearls.  The arrow shows which pearl is enlarged below.

You can see how the point has been swirled around and tucked in at the bottom of the pearl.

I wondered how the pearls would look in a design other than a straight line so I made another paper template using the same Ornare Border Stencil.  I made a floral shape (actually ended up looking more like a star or snowflake!) using every third hole of the flower on the stencil.

Aren't these fun!!

The bride, a Karen Lockhart image, was colored with Copics.  I colored a couple of images and decided to go with the lighter of the two.

The main difference between the images is the amount of blender pen used.  As I practiced with it I learned that it is more of an "eraser" than a "blender".  It pushes the ink to either side of the nib.  The more you apply, the more ink gets pushed away.  In the picture on the left you can see exactly where I used the blender pen on the gown and veil.  Because I applied so much more blender solution to the picture on the right, much more ink was pushed away which caused the image to appear lighter.

I just love this sentiment from Mona Lisa Moments' "Wedding Centers".  It may be called "Wedding Centers", but I think they make fabulous front-of-the-card sentiments, too!  It was stamped on Memory Box's new "Sugardrop" designer paper.  The white card base is Neenah "Solar White".  Memory Box's "Parsley" and "Begonia" colored card stock were also used.  The image and sentiment were stamped with Memento "Tuxedo Black" ink.

Have a wonderful day and Happy Crafting!