Though we have been lucky enough to have Sheer Heaven in our studio for more than two years (long before we ever brought it to market), we still get really excited at the discovery of yet another trick it will do - especially if it’s something that can’t really be done any other way.

We love the look of clear embossing - especially when it’s thick and shiny like a glass overlay. However, we’ve been frustrated by the need to use flat color under it. In other words, if we did blended, shaded painting in our image, the need to “re-wet” the area with embossing ink would usually mess up our water soluble painting, so we could not emboss those pieces. When we discovered the following, a cheer was heard across the land.
We turned this faux stained glass design into a lamp with a 5"x7" bevel-cut mat and a “shade” made out of folded handmade paper (see how to make a luminaria shade out of any piece of handmade paper). It can then be lit with a protected candle, or as in this case, by our own electric “Lamp Guts”.
Jessica was roaming the children’s Art Supply aisle in the local Office Max, when she was attracted by some beautiful packaging (See below). Turned out to be the Portfolio™ line of art supplies by Crayola. One of the packages was Water Soluble Oil Pastels and the whole set of 24 colors was only $8.59. Too good to be true, she thought, and quickly opened the package to see how garish the colors must be. To her surprise, they represented a real “artist’s” palette - subtle and tasteful as could be!

So back to the studio they came and we started painting everything in sight with them. Something very much in sight around here is Sheer Heaven. We found that the color blended beautifully on it, looked brilliant, seemed to be sitting up on the surface a little and, (this is important) was a tiny bit “tacky”. Hmmm . . . out came the heat tool and the clear embossing powder. We warmed the painting and quickly sprinkled it with powder (regular, not ultra). We heated it, and while it was still hot, added another layer of clear EP. We kept going until we had piled up eight layers and it looked a lot like stained glass. We held it up to the sunlight and it looked a lot like stained glass. Thus, was this project born.
A Word About the Photography In This Article
Any photographer who knows anything, tries to get rid of reflections and burned out light areas in her photographs. However, it is very hard to show the “super shine” of something on the computer screen, and the “super shine” of these pieces is what sets them apart and makes them special. Therefore, we chose to keep the reflections to show you what the pieces really look like and especially, the pebbled clear glass look in the background. We hope it doesn’t “reflect” badly on our photographic abilities. Purists, please forgive.
Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels
by Crayola
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