Book Study: Cosmos Paper

On NGS group, we are studying Julia Andrus' book "Paper Transformed". Today I had lots of fun playing with her technique "Cosmos Paper".

Julia states that this technique is best done with areas smaller than 4"x4". She uses either illustration board or 3 - 5 layers of card stock glued together. I cut up pieces of mat board to be about 2"x 3". Color the board with inks, markers, watercolors or colored pencil. If you color with anything other than pigment ink, you need to apply Perfect Medium, VersaMark or embossing ink to the surface, then generally cover with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) over the surface and melt. Julia does this with a heat tool, but I always have UTEE everywhere when using a heat tool, so I heated the board on foil in a "craft only" electric frying pan (this is a s-l-o-w way to melt UTEE). Once the UTEE is melted, sprinkle with another layer of UTEE, melt and repeat with a third layer of UTEE. Let piece cool completely.
One advantage of the electric fry pan is you can do several pieces at once.

Once the piece has cooled, apply Perfect Medium, VersaMark or embossing ink to the surface and lightly brush on Perfect Pearls.

Sprinkle UTEE on top, Julia begins to heat the UTEE from a distance as there is nothing to make the UTEE stick at this stage and you don't want to blow the UTEE off. I heated mine in the electric frying pan again. As the UTEE melts, I used the heat tool to move the Perfect Pearls around.

This piece was colored with Riviera Kadleidacolor ink and blue interference, violet interference and blue smoke Perfect Pearls. The interference perfect pearls are transparent and allow more of the ink colors to show through.
The next was was colored with Desert Heat Kaleidacolor ink and raspberry sparkle, forever green and gold Perfect Pearls.

This one was colored with Royal Satin Kaleidacolor ink and blue, plum and kiwi Perfect Pearls.
The last one was colored with ColorBox Paint Box inks and plum, violet and copper Perfect Pearls.