Product Review Thursday- Clear Scraps

Hello scrapping friends. Welcome to the Scrapbook Blessings Club. My name is Barbara. I am happy to share with you a product that I absolutely love. It is called Clear Scraps Acrylics. You can find them here: http://www.clearscraps.com/. You can do so much with these products and they really are easy to use. You get beautiful results if you just know a few tips. I am going to show you how to make an acrylic and chipboard mixed album today.

My tips for you today....well just take a look below. I have a ton of them for you!!!

The first thing to know is that there are two types of acrylic: Cast Acrylic and Extruded Acrylic. First I will tell you about extruded acrylic. It is thin and somewhat pliable. You can easily bend it with your hand like this:

Extruded acrylic is not scratch resistant. It can be dry embossed with any embossing folder and machine. It will look like this:

Isn't that lovely?  Extruded acrylic can be reshaped by using a hair dryer and tweezers. Do not heat with your heat gun unless you want it to be really misshapen and you want it to shrink. If you heat it too long with your heat gun it will totally melt.
You can also cut extruded acrylic with sturdy scissors.
Now, about cast acrylic. It is very hard, scratch resistant and thick. It cannot be dry embossed. It is more like working with glass. You can heat emboss on cast acrylic with beautiful results. It usually comes with a brown paper protective coating.
When you are ready to decorate your acrylic piece, remove the protective film from the side you will be working on. If you are going to run it through your embossing machine, remove both sides of protective covering.
Acrylic is a non porous surface. Therefore not all mediums that work on paper will work on acrylic.
Always use a solvent based adhesive. It will say dangerous and flammable on the label. Clear Scraps recommends Zip Dry by Beacon.

Only use a small amount of adhesive in the middle of the piece you are adhering to the acrylic piece so that you do not have a large area of adhesive showing on the other side that you have to cover up.
Use inks, paints and other mediums that are designed for non porous surfaces such as alcohol inks and markers, acrylic paint and most kinds of spray paints. If you want to try some water based products such as mists, usually these will work, but you should leave them to dry over night. If you don't like the results you get at any time on the acrylic piece, just use NON ACETONE fingernail polish remover and start over. Staz-on works really well. Dye inks can work if left to dry over night. Pigment inks and distress inks do not work.
This is the project I made in a class with the owner, Susan Frase.

It was easy and fun and I am very happy with the results.
Now, I am going to show you step by step how to make your own acrylic album.


Supplies used:
Clear Scraps Mixable Album Fancy
Daily Series Collection by Teresa Collins ( I used the PP and embellishments from this line)
Bling
Thickers
Alcohol inks
Acrylic Paint
Stencils
Alcohol ink applicator and pads
Zip dry adhesive
Rubber stamp
Staz-on ink
Have on hand:
Alcohol ink blending solution (this also works to clean up ink you get on your craft mat)
Non Acetone Nail Polish remover to fix anything you don't like.

This particular album has three acrylic pages and two chipboard pages.

Remove the protective covering from one side of one of the acrylic pieces. It peels off fairly easily from the corner like this:

Prepare your alcohol ink applicator by first applying the foam pad to the handle like this:

Then add your inks like this: first add your lighter color to the middle in a circle.

Then add your darker ink color around this circle like this:

Then add your metallic ink in an X shape like this:

Quickly and with light pressure, pounce the applicator all over the acrylic page till it is all covered.

There are two different techniques to try to get different effects. Try them both and see which one you like better, or maybe you like a combination of the two. Put your applicator down on the acrylic and press down, then blow on the ink. Do this all over your page. This will give you a marbled effect like this:

 You can also put the applicator down and twirl it to get a swirled effect.
Give it about 5 minutes to dry completely. Turn it over and remove the protective film from the other side. See if you like it. If not, just use the non acetone fingernail polish remover, clean it and start over. No mistake is permanent!
Now you can stamp on the other side with Staz-on ink.

Stamping on acrylic is a little tricky because the surface is smooth and slippery. Ink your stamp well. Always use first generation impressions. Place your stamp face down on the acrylic where you want it to stamp. Then, stand up and place the heel of your hand on top of the stamp being careful not to move the stamp, and press straight down. Remove the stamp by pulling it straight up.

 Give it about 5 minutes to dry completely.

Next I am going to use stencils and acrylic paint for a totally different effect.

TIP: I use those really inexpensive make up sponges to sponge on ink or paint with a stencil.
Remove the protective coating from the side you want to paint on. Put only a small amount of paint on your sponge and pounce till you have covered all that you want to cover with this stencil.

 Then I used pink paint to stencil over the white paint after letting the white paint dry for about 3-4 minutes. I also used the pink paint to distress the edges. I covered the back side of this acrylic piece with PP using zip dry adhesive in the center and a tiny bit in each corner because it would not show through the paint.
When I covered the scalloped chipboard pages with PP I used my files to file off the excess PP so it would fit the chipboard piece exactly.

I used the alcohol marker called Smoothie from CTMH to ink the edges after sanding. Here are my finished pages. You can decorate the pages any way you like. Just be sure to use the zip dry adhesive if you are adhering something directly to the acrylic.

 I tied mine together with ribbon, but you can use rings to hold it together also.

I know this was a long post. Thank you for sticking around to the end. I hope you will try acrylics for regular 12x12 scrapbook pages, cards, mini books, and home decor items. They are easy,fun and beautiful People will be asking you " How did you do that?"


As always please contact the DT if you have any questions and someone will get back with you. 
Also, you can join up to our Facebook group: Scrapbook Blessings Club for more fun, games, inspiration, tips and techniques.  Have a Scrapbook Blessings kind of day. 

Till next time:
Hope you have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by, Barbara.