All About Magicals!

Magicals are little jars of magical powder and are from manufacturer Lindy's Stamp Gang. They come in sets of 5, and recently there have been 5 new luscious individual jars added to the range.

They are a dried, highly pigmented, permanent ink with shimmer in powder form. 

However, the colour you see in the pot is not the colour you get when they are mixed with water - the colour shown on the lid is the true colour. The powder is made up of different coloured pigments, so you need to ensure you mix them well when adding them to various mediums. The powders stain the mediums, rather than float in them.

The powders can of course be mixed together too, to create your own unique colour.

The good news is they can be safely dried with a heat tool!

So how do you use them? Well, there are several ways. Mix a little with some water, and paint with it like you would watercolour paint. But be aware, you only need a really small amount - a little goes a long way as they are super concentrated.

Fill a mister with water, add some powder and you have your own beautiful mist. This method is great if you want to add colour to a larger area, and to have more control over the depth of colour. If you want more colour, just spray again.

Mix the powder with texture paste to create your own coloured texture paste, and use it through a stencil. The colour will remain vibrant, but a little of the shimmer will be lost. If you mix the powder with gesso though, some of the vibrancy will be lost because of the high chalk content in the gesso.

You can also try mixing the Magicals with gel mediums, such as Finnabair's 3D gloss gel - the gel part of the mix will dry clear so this way you won't lose any of the vibrancy or shimmer of the powder.

Use a damp paint brush and add colour directly from the pot to metal, wood, chipboard and resin shapes. Then use a gel medium or fixative to prevent the colour wearing off. If you paint the wood or chipboard bases with gesso first, the colours will blend more easily than they would if you painted directly on to the wood or chipboard. Gesso is a primer that prevents the colour from soaking in to the base product.

Custom colour your own flowers with the powder - mist them with water first then add in a tiny bit of the powder and watch the colour run!

You can even try stamping with them - use embossing ink on your stamp, add the powder, then stamp.

In the photo below, I have used texture paste through a Mandala Stencil from The Dusty Attic. I then misted the page with water, then sprinkled on some different colours of powders, misted again and let it run. This technique is perfect for journal pages and mixed media projects. I have cut this one out to make a paper layer for a scrapbook page.

Magicals are such a fun way to add colour to all your craft projects. I am really loving using these at the moment, and urge you to give them a try if you haven't already. We have them available at The Mad Scrapper here. 

Remember to only use the tiniest amount, they work so much better this way, and you can always build up more colour if needed.

Happy crafting!!