Clear Vintage Page Charm Tutorial

Lately I’ve been thinking about cracks. Noooo, not the kind where you spot some dude bent over and he forgot to wear a belt…the kind where you appreciate them for the item’s age. So, lovely cracks!

I also have been trying to find a good use for these German stickers I have in my stash. So, decided to pair them up with some metal pieces I had and apply a crackle finish.  You may have spotted my hand made embellishment on my last page at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge.

These are pretty simple, just the drying time takes a bit so be prepared to wait overnight.

Assemble your ingredients.

As you can see here, I have a clear shaped back that I punched (you can easily hand cut as well) to sit behind the sticker. I using a bit of some Tim Holtz packaging but really any clear heavier plastic will do. 

Next, stick the sticker to the top of the clear piece and assemble for glue.

I like to tape my back in. After making about 10 of these, I have determined that packing tape is better. Some glue will creep under the metal, but the tape does a good job of keeping most of where it is supposed to be.

Now, the Crackle Accents glue I am using from Ranger makes larger sized cracks. I do have some new glue I am trying that is more like a paint that makes smaller crackles. 

Basically fill the entire metal bracket with a mound of glue. Like LOTS. It won't look pretty as it will be sitting all lumpy in the middle. Here comes my secret which I completely discovered by accident. 

Now, the secret ingredient here for BIG crackles is adding a bit of rubbing alcohol to urge the glue to flow better. I like to add enough where it looks nice and smooth. You can add it via a dropper or an empty glue bottle. See, I was adding a bit more glue at one point and accidentally added alcohol which was in a similar bottle. Those turned out the best! ;-)

Also, you can add a bit of color with glimmermist and add sparkles at this point. I threw in a couple of pearls while I was at it. 

After it dried, I inked it up a bit with ink. 

This same concept will also work for clear heavier chip board using the same concept. 

If you give this a try, let me know! 

Of course, you could play along with the two challenges that are running and use it there! ;-)