So today's post was going to be about the ATC I made for this month (Theme: Birds), but I decided to make it into a tutorial instead, and kill 2 birds with one stone (pun intended? lol)
Tutorial: Glitter Ritz & Outline Stickers
So I used one of my favourite, yet time consuming, techniques on my ATCs this month: Glitter Ritz with outline stickers. You will need the following items:
1. Outline stickers - I usually use 'Peel Offs', but there are other great brands out there too, so make sure you experiment!
2. Peel Offs Magic Tape (pictured below)
3. Glitter Ritz
4. Double Sided tape- I used Sookwang tape for this
5. A pin
6. Tweezers
7. A dry paintbrush or cloth - Used to wipe off excess glitter
8. Xacto Knife
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| At this point I only took off the background, not the outer border, so ignore the fact that it's still on there lol |
So this first thing I did was to take the stickers out of the package, and peel off the background and outside border parts of the sheet. Like I said, I was doing this to make ATCs so I needed to do 11 of these birds, which would only leave one on the sheet. If you only need 1 or 2 for your project, just cut them right off the sheet and then peel the background off of your cut outs.
Next, cut a piece off of your Magic Tape (MT) that is slightly larger than your sticker. You don't HAVE to cut it small, but I find it's MUCH easier to work with if I do. Press it down over the sticker, and rub over it well, making sure the outline sticker adheres to the MT.
Flip everything over and gently start to pull back the with backing of the outline sticker. Try not to pull the backing 'up', aim to almost fold it in half backwards and pull away so that the sticker releases from the backing and sticks to the MT. This is where the pin comes in handy. Use the pin to help release the sticker from the backing, and to get all the little parts that don't come off as easily.
The goal here it to have the entire sticker with all it's inside parts transfer directly to the MT, sticky side UP, as seen above.
Once your sticker is successfully adhered to the MT, flip it over and stick it to your double sided tape. Rub down on it so that it adheres to the double sided tape. Your first few transfers with a new piece of Magic Tape will be more difficult as it's still really sticky. And sticky on sticky is NEVER fun to deal with. As you will find out a couple of steps from now lol Pull the MT off in the same way you pull the sticker sheet off in the last step, pull back, not up. Use your pin again if you need help getting the pieces off.
So your next step is to cut your stickers out. You could technically skip this step, but it's a HUGE waste of glitter, and you all know how much I love my glitter :) I painstakingly cut out the first 10 birds with scissors. It was NOT FUN AT ALL. Then I had an "I wonder..." moment and tried a blade, and OMG SO MUCH EASIER! USE THE BLADE FOLKS!
This is when things get a little bit difficult. As you know you now have a sticker stuck to double sided sticky tape. And you need to remove some of the sections out of the inside of your outline. We all know the formula: sticky + sticky = STUCK. Well here is where your tweezers and LOADS of patience come in handy. I wanted to accent certain bits with one color and then do the body another color. You can do it all one color, or you can use more than I did, it's absolutely your call.
I pulled out the pieces for the beak, the accent dots, and the eyes (mind you after I took out all the eye stickers, I realized I pulled the wrong ones out. Should have been the tiny dots, not outline of the eye. Sadface.) Use your tweezers and the pin to help get the pieces out. But take them out gently. Remember, the whole thing is only LIGHTLY adhered to the backing on the OTHER side of the double sided tape, the part that is meant to release easily for when you want to adhere your stickers to the final project.
Pour a small amount of GR over the exposed bits, rub it in a circular motion with your fingers, tap off the excess, and use your dry paintbrush (or equivalent) to get all the extra glitter off.
Repeat the above steps with the main sections of the body. Here is where you have to be REALLY careful about pulling the sections out. They are much bigger and therefore are much more resistant to your pulling. Go slow, take deep breaths, and take breaks if you need to.
Use your next color to fill in the bigger sections, rub in with a circular motion and dusting off the excess as you go. There you go! Your stickers are done! I know it is a pain to do them, but the results in person are oh so amazing!
Here are my finished ATCs:
And here are a couple of cards I made about a year ago with the same technique (and sheet of stickers lol)/ The scroll was cut out with my Cricut and just stuck to the double sided tape. MUCH easier to do, but only useful if you are planning to use only 1 color of glitter on your image.
I really do love the finished product when using this technique, but it can be a real pain, so I only do it about once a year lol I think I'll sit down one weekend and just make a big glittery mess of my craftroom and get a bunch of them done. I've been collecting outline stickers for years and they (and my Glitter Ritz collection) are DYING to be used!
