Helmar Creative Team

Product Spotlight by Suzanne Franin

Hey Everyone Suzanne here.

This week on the Helmar Blog I'm spotlighting the 450 Quick Dry Adhesive.  It's one of my favourites that I reach for all the time!

I love that it dries quick and clear and will stick just about anything!

Make sure you check out the rest of the blog to see all the sensational ideas the rest of the team have come up with.  

And be sure to check out the Shop to see the huge range of Helmar products we have there.

So I've created a part 2 layout to one I created a couple of weeks ago of a very sad little girl who didn't want her big sister to go off to Kinder.

Well this is a layout of the big sister enjoying every minute of Kinder and probably not giving her little sister a second thought.

 

 

 

 I used Cocoa Vanilla Studio - Happiness papers and embellishments on this layout.

The camera was from my stash. 

 I used a tag and stuck a paper tassel to it so it can be pulled down and mum can write the story on it.

It sits up under the photo (which I always use the Acid-Free Glue on) I only stuck 3 sides down. 

 

I liked this little tag because shes painting I thought it was appropriate. 

I used 3 of the word stickers from the Accessory Stickers as well as the butterfly.

Helmar product I used:

450 Quick Dry Adhesive

 

Thank you for visiting and I hope you come back soon x

 

Maggie Holmes Mixed Media Art Journal

Hello again!! Jeanne here this month to share with you this DIY Art Journal that I made using the "Flourish" Collection by Maggie Holmes whom designs for Crate Paper and creates some fun, beautiful paper collections. I have previously made some projects from Mini Albums to Coin ATC's using her collections. I have noticed lately though many crafters have been doing some hauls from a chain store here in the states, Tuesday Morning. I'm a guilty of being one of those who have purchased a thing or two but had also a little bit of a hoard in my stash that I have decided to take out of my hoard vault and make this journal.  

 

This journal measures 8X10 and I am seriously considering having to making it into a chipboard book spine instead of this 3- ringed album because its gotten pretty thick and I have yet to journal in it !! 

 

Anyhow it was pretty simple to make as I already had much of the inner pages complete using a Prima Mixed Media Book , I also made some journaling pages cutting and binding some printer paper , I added some We R Memory Keepers Eyelets for added durability. I laminated some of the Maggie Holmes 6X8 paper that I purchased from Tuesday Morning, I added these as smaller dashboards for my journal since there were already bigger ones in the Prima Mixed Media Book.

 

 

I had also added some gold leaf trim , part of the Flourish collection as well as a variety of ephemera, stickers and other embellishments from the collection. I decided to make my first lace charm dangle. I also made a pen loop using faux leather . I hope to make a YouTube video and link it here so that you may view it in its entirety since it had too many photos to take and post here. 

 

 

 

Products used for this project: 

Helmar 450 Quick Dry Glue

Helmar Premium Craft Glue

Helmar Fabric Glue

Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots

 

                     

 

                             

   I do hope that you all enjoyed this project that I have made this month! I hope you and your family are enjoying your summer and getting prepared for the 4th of July! 

 

                          

Thank you so much my crafty friends!! ~Hugs, Jeanne 

                         

Waterfall birthday card

My good friend and former college roommate just had a birthday. She and my brother are a couple. My brother asked me to use vacation pictures of her in a birthday card. I finally decided to make a waterfall card so I could display multiple photos.

Here are the supplies: card base, inside mechanism, ribbon, strip of card stock, photos. And of course my Helmar Quick Dry Adhesive.

 

I matted all the photos onto cardstock and then onto the waterfall mechanism using the Helmar Quick Dry Adhesive. And while the glue did dry quickly, I had just enough wiggle room to line the photos up straight.

Then I used project life cards to decorate the first and last pages of the waterfall mechanism.

The recipient pulls the ribbon tab and the photos flip over one by one.

 I added a flower to finish off the card.

Materials:

card stock

ribbon

Helmar Quick Dry Adhesive

Farewell for today and happy crafting until next time! 

Art Journal Page with Robyn Wood

Hello! It’s Robyn Wood with you today sharing minimalist style art journal page featuring Helmar adhesives.

Helmar adhesives make sticking embellishments into an art journal so easy. The adhesives I have used dry quickly and remain flexible so turning pages is a breeze.

Sometimes I want to get creative with acrylic paint but don’t really know what I want to create so I paint a few random pages in my art journals. It gets my hands busy while my brain decides on the next step or simply has a little snooze;)

I decided I wanted to show you how I might work on one of these pages so let’s get started! Once my page is covered with paint, I might add a little bit of texture by collaging and this mesh style material is a good start. I’ve added it to three of the page corners.

I like adding areas of high contrast to my art journal pages so painted in a section of rough black rectangles to a corner of my page using black acrylic paint.

A tag is a great way to add an embellishment to an art journal page and I usually keep a stash of tags that have been made at different times for adding to my pages. This tag features a watercolour background that had been overstamped with a wet background stamp to give a random type texture. Some typed words, torn paper & coloured butterfly finished it off and added a lovely touch of colour to my page. The butterfly is attached with just a touch of Helmar Tacky Craft Glue in the centre of the body so that the wings can lift up.

To give the tag a little dimension, I used Helmar Scrap Dots on the back and pressed it lightly onto my page. I think this is a nice ‘first page’ for my much loved art journal. Actually I often skip over the first page in my journals until I come up with something that seems to capture what is on the rest of the pages & this one is full of little snippets of inspiration and colour.

Supplies:
Helmar Scrap Dots
Helmar Tacky Craft Glue
Journal – Dylusions Dyalog grid pages
Stamps - Darkroom Door

I hope you have enjoyed learning how this project was created and I’d love to see pages you have created with Helmar adhesives. Until next time…

Grandma and Natalii by Suzanne Franin

 

Hey Everyone Suzanne here,

This project for Helmar was a Birthday present for my mum, she's very hard to buy for as she buys what she wants and always says nothing when asked what she would like. 

This is a special photo as it's of my mum and my daughter. 

It's a rare thing! LOL The 3 of us don't really like our photos taken so being Natalii's wedding it was a perfect opportunity to get some done (I was in this photo too but I didn't look right I was more off to the side, so I cropped myself out and it was perfect of the two of them)

 

 

I used the Acid Free Glue on the cardboard that I put the photo on to mount it up a bit higher. 

 

The stencil I used is from Colour Blast called Boho Mandala but I bought it from Random Arts. 

The papers are pieces from the Midnight Garden Range either from the Journaling cards or some of the paper range offcuts I have. 

I also used the Acid Free Glue on the papers that I glued together before I glued them to the canvas which I glued them down with the Premium Craft Glue.

To glue the vellum type paper I used the Acid Free Glue and then to glue the clear cabochon on I used the Premium Craft Glue.

The paper had the Wedding date on it which was quite a coincides as it was from a pack of flowers from Prima.

I used the Premium Craft Glue to glue all the embellishments down as it's a great strong glue and holds everything down including all the metal I used.

 

The white flowers are from a cheap shop but all the red ones including the stem are all Prima (I love their flowers and the colour was perfect for this canvas).

I love metal it just goes with everything and these are a mix of random pieces I had, Graphic 45 and Finnabair. 

I then rubbed everything with some Art Alchemy Opal Magic Wax in Vintage Silk one of my favourite colours in the waxes as its subtle and has a nice shimmer to it. 

It lifted the stencilled image enough that it didn't jump off the canvas but you can see it.

 

 

Helmer Products I used:

 

Premium Craft Glue

 

Acid Free Glue

 

 

Thank you for visiting and I hope you come back soon x

Butterflies in the Garden

Hello all,

Today I have recycled a butterfly photo frame I found in a 2nd hand shop.

I have used Crystal Kote Gloss Varnish Spray, 450 Quick Dry Glue and Scrap Dots.

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Firtslty I painted the butterfly frame and 1 of the ideology ornate frames with heavy black gesso, then when this was dry I sprayed both pieces with the Crystal Kote Gloss Varnish.

I have fussy cut out pairs of butterfly wings from an acetate sheet and glued these over the butterflies on the frame securing with 450 quick dry glue.

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After the wings were dry I added black jewel strips for the bodies and added Scrap Dots under the wings propping them up.

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I have also stamped and embossed a verse and small butterflies in gold 

Enjoy

Delicious Craft Candy

Hello everyone and welcome to the Helmar Blog. Today I am going to alter up some Candy Tubes which were purchased from my local discount shop.

What you will need:

Helmar Tacky Craft Glue

Helmar Fabric Glue

Candy Tubes or Test Tubes (whichever you have or prefer)

Paint of your choice

Sandpaper or nail file

A variety of laces, trims and embellishments to decorate (scraps are great for this project)

Firstly, remove the lids from the tubes and give them a sand with either sandpaper or a strong nail file to rough up the plastic and to help the paint to stick. 

Once this is done you can paint your lids, I'm using a simple acrylic paint in 'Antique White' and giving them two or three coats. As I'm going for a 'shabby' look I don't need to be too particular about the coverage. You can also use corks if you don't want the plastic lids, just lightly paint the cork in the same way.

Once your lids are completely dry you can now start the fun part of decorating.

Using the Helmar Tacky Craft Glue I am attaching a strip of fabric around the lid, scrunching it a little as I go.

Allow plenty of time for this to dry.

Once the fabric around the lid has dried, you can start decorating the tube. I like to use my Helmar Fabric Glue for this as it has a wonderful strong hold yet keeps everything soft to the touch and it doesn't smear on the plastic. Be sure that when you glue anything on to the tube that it is below the line of where the lid will screw on.

Continue to glue on your embellishments until you get your desired look. I've used scrap vintage laces, small flowers and rhinestone chain off cuts etc for mine.

When you're happy with how the tubes look, you can attach a little tag if you want, I printed out some words, cut them out and inked the edges. I then glued them onto some cardstock using the Helmar Tacky Craft Glue and attached it to the tubes using a bulb pin with a couple of tiny beads.

I do hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and will try it out for yourself. The Candy Tubes are great for giving to crafty friends or just sitting in a dish in your crafty space to look pretty.

Candy tubes can be filled with many small pretty bits and pieces like peals, beads, sequins, buttons, paperclips, laces, small flowers etc .. oh and of course real candy if you want ;) hehe

Take care and thank you so much for stopping by :)

Jeanette xxx

Making a Diptych Acrylic Pour, Swipe Method, with many cells

Making an Acrylic Pour using Helmar PVA glue and Helmar Silicone Oil for Cells

Hey guys, Kristina here again with my very last post for Helmar.  I decided to do something I have wanted to try for ages, and that is an acrylic pour using PVA glue as the pouring medium, and silicone oil for the cells.  It actually worked better than I expected.  I covered the diptych in resin to enhance the shine once it was all dry, because I just love the gloss finish resin gives.

 

Helmar products used:

Silicone Oil

Helmar Craft and Hobby PVA Glue

 

Other Items required:

Paper Towel

Floetrol

Pouring medium or Airbrush medium

Water

Mixing Jug

Acrylic paints for pouring

Plastic cups

Popsicle sticks to mix the paints

Resin (if you decide to cover it in resin)

 

Procedure:

First of all there is a formula for making the pouring medium that you need to know.  This is the formula from "Pouring Your Heart Out" YouTube channel.  It is Floetrol 3 parts: PVA Glue 2 parts: Pouring medium 1 part: water 1/4 parts.  So, you use 300g of Floetrol, 200g Helmar pva glue, 100g of pouring medium and 25g of water.  You mix all of this together in a plastic jug and let is sit for a half hour.

Then decide on your paint colours, and the swipe colour.  Black or white is generally a great beginners swipe colour.  Add some of your pouring medium to the plastic cups, then add the acrylic paint to the pouring medium and mix well.  It is a great consistency when the paint stays on your popsicle stick when you lift it out of the mix, but it also flows straight back into the cup when you tip your stick.  If it is too thick, add more pouring medium or a little bit of water.  If it is too thin, add more paint.  I found Jo Sonja paints to be the best consistency for this type of pour.  Once you are happy with your mixes, leave them for at least an hour, this helps the bubbles settle to the bottom.

 

The paint colours I used in this pour were:

Carbon Black (Swipe colour)

Titanium White

Yellow

Aqua

Burnt Sienna

Rich Gold

Pacific Blue

Metallic Copper

Yellow Ochre

Once the paints have been mixed and left for a while, arrange your canvas that you will be pouring on.  Lay down a plastic covering on top of cardboard or plastic, so you don't make a mess on your floor.  Put your canvas on top of some cups, so it is not on the ground, otherwise it may get stuck to the ground.

 

Right before you are going to do your pour, add the silicone to all the colours except the black (swipe colour).  Add approximately 4-5 drops in each cup, and stir once or twice, not too much.

 

Now it is time to pour.  Pour the paints in any order you want, but just make sure your swipe colour is in the middle of the canvas and a little at the top.

 

 

Once you are happy with the paint, get your paper towel, I had to use two joined together because my canvas was wide.  Place the bottom of the paper towel into the black paint and drag it slowly down the canvas, making sure it is dragging the paint down the canvas,

 

 

Then grab a new paper towel, place it in the black paint and swipe up the canvas in the same way you swiped down.  Almost immediately you will see the cells forming because of the silicone oil added.  It is absolutely beautiful to watch.

 

This was the most fun I had had in a long time, just watching the colours mix and cells form.  If you have any spots on the canvas that are not covered in paint, just pour a little bit on them, or mix it around with a popsicle stick until you are happy.

 

 

Just leave the canvas on the flat surface until it is dry to touch.  It can take up to three days to be dry to the touch, depending on your weather etc.  Mine took two days, and even though it may look dry, refrain from touching it unless you are absolutely sure.  Yes, speaking from experience here, I touched it, it wasn't dry.  Once you are absolutely sure it is dry, give it a wipe with a slightly damp paper towel.  The silicone will rise to the top of the paint and make a slight film on the canvas.  Just wipe it off and it's done.

 

Next step is to wait about two weeks to ensure the paint is fully dry, and the pouring medium too.  This can take a while.  Then either varnish with your choice of varnish, or you can cover it in clear epoxy resin.  I chose resin, I have a pretty bad allergy to resin so I probably shouldn'y have, but I just love the gloss shine when it's dry. 

 

Mix up your resin how the instructions tell you too, wear gloves, mask, fully cover up and do it in a well ventilated area.  I didn't do this when I first started with resin, and it caused me to become allergic.  I cannot even be touched by the fumes of the resin without getting a serious allergy burn with rash and severe itching.  It is not fun so I recommend always covering up.

You should always wear a mask, the fumes are pretty harsh, especially on your respiratory system.

 

Lay your canvas flat and above the ground, like you did with the acrylic pour, and drizzle the resin over the canvas.  Help it smooth out and cover the canvas using a long flat stick or your hands with gloves on. 

Then when you are happy with the coverage you need to remove the bubbles using a heat gun.  Go gently over the whole canvas with the heat gun.  Then leave it alone to dry, it should be touch dry in about 12 hours, depending on weather.  This is what you should end up with, a gorgeous acrylic pour thanks to pva glue and silicone oil. 

 

 

I love using my creative side again.  It has been a pleasure and I hope everyone keeps creating with Helmar.  Don't forget you can purchase Helmar products from here:  http://www.helmar.com.au/shop/manufacturer/

 

Getting my canvas back into it's frame

Hi Helmar fans, Raelene with you today.

One of the things my Mum absolutely treasured was this portrait of me.  It is by the first artist/photographer to ever put photos onto canvas and I think it was in 1978/1979 judging by my age in the photo.  He had a ground breaking technique for putting photos onto canvas and making them look like a oil painting and my portrait appeared on TV as there was a special on it late at night.  I remember Mum telling me about how Grandma stayed up late to watch it.
I have no idea who the artist was but I would love to find out.

Unfortunately the way Mum stored it and the way it was transported during multiple moves caused it to come out of it's frame but thanks to Helmar I was able to glue it back in!

I wasn't sure which glue was best so I asked Helmar and as always they had answers and advice to help me get this done.  Helmar Super-Tac Glue was what was recommended and it definitely did the job.

I cleaned the frame and the edge of the canvas with a damp cloth.  Then I applied Helmar Super-Tac Glue to the edge of the canvas but I would realise this was a mistake and it was better to apply it inside the frame to get a proper adhesion of the canvas to the frame.

I got a really good seal using this glue. 

As you can see in this photo the print is starting to come off in tiny spots, it is also really faded (my dress had sky blue flowers on it), etc due to being on a wall for 30 years so I have wrapped it up in bubble wrap and packed it into a picture/mirror box to keep it safe.

After packing it away I realised I should have given it a coat of Helmar Chrystal Kote Gloss Varnish (gloss as it was glossy when new) to provided added protection, so I will have to get it out of storage and do that a.s.a.p!

I am so glad that I was able to get this back into it's frame and hopefully it will last longer thanks to Helmar.

 

 

Love Letter Journal: Product Spotlight-Premium Craft Glue

Hey folks Tamiko here!! Today is a post mainly talking about one of my favorite glues, Premium Craft Glue! This particular glue is clear, in gel form and it dries crystal clear.  I use it quick fast and in a hurry for many reasons not already listed. The glue itself is super awesome! It has allowed me to make many a paper crafted items that I've mailed out not just locally, but all around the world. So, I needed to make sure that it stayed in very sturdy condition, especially since I knew it might not be handled in the fashion I might do so.  A perfect example for me would be the work that I do in my Letter Love Journals. My journal is  4x8 inches, very simple in design and sewn.  my outside embellishments on this particular one were all glued on.  Here is an example of a Letter Love Journal.

 

Supplies I used (but not limited to):

Helmar Premium Craft Glue

Manilla folder

Card stock

Awl 

Thread 

Needle

Misc. Stickers, Paints, Digital images, collage papers, washi tape, scrap papers

 

What's a Letter Love Journal? I requested to be added to a group on Facebook that I was introduced to by my Helmar Creative Team sister Vicki Ann. The journals are only 8x8 inches folded in half to 4x8 inches. One cover and 4 pages.  Very simple, think like inserts we buy for travelor's notebooks. in the group are national swaps, international swaps and US swaps.  Sometimes they are themed, that makes for the challenge. They can actually fit in business letter enevelopes if you aren't sending any extras. We rotate them amongst 4 participants till we get our own journals back.  At the end you have worked in 4 journals and you now have the art of 4 new artists.  The books feel all loved on and they need to be sturdy, so I always use my Helmar's Adhesives all through them!! We try to keep them as flat as we possibly can in most cases, as to not incur additional postage charges due to thickness. please see below the covers of the journal most recently created.

 

Now I didn't get as fancy on my own book, moreso because I wanted everyone to feel comfy seeing how to create different kinds of art in the journals. There is actually no wrong way, like art.. the theme is also up to the artist interpretation. Here are some inside collage pieced pages.  Not photographed are the pockets I also made inside to insert stickers and notes. I would and could ONLY do this with Helmar Adhesives. My Premium Craft glue is awesome!  It dries quickly and allows for the flexibility of pages.  Pages won't feel like some stiff board because I used glue is specific areas.  I can honestly say when I use this glue it lasts far longer then I ever imagined.. Its also non toxic and archival safe, which means my papers won't yellow or deteriorate at any faster rate because I used the adhesive!!  How cool is that!?!?!?

 

Don't forget Helmar is an AUSTRALIAN COMPANY that has offices also in the USA and it ships to various places WORLDWIDE!!  Try not just one but a few of the adhesives, but they also sell a number of items in the hardware and automovies and firearms cleaners and lubricants!! Yes Helmar's products can either bring things together with glue.. or keep them from hardening and sticking together!!