My Designer Imposter Dew Drops

Does anyone remember about 20yrs ago (oh, Lordy, I just dated myself!), when designer imposter fragrances were all the rage? You could wear Poison, Red Door, Giorgio, & Lagerfeld for about $20 per bottle, as opposed to $80 per ounce. Well, folks I actually had a briefcase full of the stuff and would sell it door-to-door. Chris used to tell me that I was the ONLY person he'd ever known that could actually make money doing that! *LOL*

Well, I guess in the world of crafting, times haven't really changed that much. I have REALLY been wanting to play with Dew Drops after seeing them on the European blogs, then the American blogs. They're so pretty! Translucent, pearly, & now metallic...the options were mind-boggling. BUT...they came with a price. Anywhere from $4 for a small pot of about 50 "drops" (yes, I actually found someone portioning them off & selling on eBay) to the original bottle for $6-9USD. Didn't matter, Chris's job was slowing down & with him being commission-only, that meant MONEY was slowing down. With three growing boys that are eating machines, food and clothing take priority over Mom's crafting "wishes." There HAD to be a way to get my hands on some of these, or come up with something close.

Enter, the PC Crafter Message Boards - there had been a discussion about these little gems last month & one of the gals gave us a link to learn how to make our own. The ladies that post for The Craftiblog were sharing how they learned to make homemade Dew Drops out of Scrap & Stamp Magazine. The lady that shared the link with us over at PC Crafter had tried it with GLITTER GLUE and announced amazing results. I got so excited...it was the perfect answer to my "I need it for next to nothing" situation. I already had a dual temp glue gun, I had glue sticks (not glitter)...so I grabbed my teflon coated craft sheet and set out to see if it really worked. I used 1 1/3 sticks of glue and though they're not as "clear" as they're supposed to be, I got nearly 100 Dew Drops to use on projects. Here's how they turned out:

Flat on the bottom...perfect for gluing down to papers & cards!

An added bonus...you can make different sizes and shapes. Do you always want round? What if you want them bigger? Or would an oval look cool on something? How about teardrop shaped?

Last shot of my first batch. You can see that they're a bit "milky" but for my first attempt and what I'm using them for, they work just fine. Hey, I'm not complaining, I already had the supplies on hand and they weren't being used, so... In the tutorial, they colored their drops in a plastic baggie with alcohol inks (I can practically hear Calv's mind whirling as soon as he reads this), but I didn't have any on hand. I DID, however, have my COPIC markers...they're alcohol inks, so why can't I color them one at a time as I need them? Well, as you can see from Saturday's post, I colored the bottoms of the drops, gave them about 30 minutes to dry, glued them down with a drop of Tombow & they worked, just like I needed them to.

Since I tried this glue stick technique, I've found that Heather has come up with a way to make your Dew Drop Imposters by using Crystal Effects Glaze. I haven't tried it yet...but I'm gonna!

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!