glitter on kids' art work

[FramerBill]

Someone came in the other day with their child's art. it is filled with glitter and keeps falling to the bottom. I've heard hairspray keeps it in place. Any ideas? Comments.
Thanks

[Framing Goddess]

Forget the hairspray and accept the glitterfall as part of the charm of the piece.
Space the mat up with one thickness of mat board or fome core and let the sparkles fall into that li'l space. We call that a "trap mat" and use it on shedding pastels as well.

edie the eitherthatorhavethekidglueglitteralloverthewholema t goddess

[JRB]

We just did one of those a couple of months ago. We double matted it. We did a quarter inch fillet ( Bottom mat) in the same glitter as in the artwork. We put a space between the bottom mat and the top mat to catch the traveling glitter if we could. Customer just thought we were the greatest. smile.gif

John

[FramerBill]

thanks for the input. in this case however, we are creating a shadow box! it's a 3D piece with shells and various other items! it seems hairsray is the way to go!

[Framing Goddess]

Bill, you could glitterize the spacer you use for the shadowbox. That way you could use John's Most Excellent Fillet Idea on your project. Some folks use strips of fc with a mat board spacer for their shadowbox thingy, but I like Raphael's wood spacers. You could also use flat screen door beading if it is the right depth.
I'd still be wary of hairspray. Seems like you'd be asking for trouble with that.
Let us know how it turns out!

edie the iloveshinythings goddess

[GUMBY, GCF]

You had better check the chemical make up of hair spray. Hair spray is made for a temporary use.( to be washed out) It generally turns yellow over a period of time. If I remember some hair sprays were a watered down shellac and we all know that turns yellow to orange. I have some shellaced moulding that almost looks cherry it is so old. If you are going to put anything in contact with a framed piece you should know what that product will do over time and how it will react with the chemical make of the piece. Do you know this about your hair spray?

P.S.
I suppose some ilinformed art teacher told you this.
Ahh what the hello go ahead just spray the thing. But we have all told you so.

[ 09-15-2003, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: GUMBY ]

[Stevewagen]

Someone told me that puzzle glue (the clear spray stuff) works well, but I haven't tried it. Anyone brave enough out there?

[HannaFate]

You can still make a hide-away for the loose glitter by putting a wide fillet on the shadowbox frame.

If you feel you must stabilize the glitter in some way, you can gently dab glossy acrylic medium (liquid works better than gel for this) directly onto the glitter. It will coat and seal the glittered areas, making them look like glitter paint rather than loose glitter.

This is the ONLY way I have ever found to keep glitter from shedding.

Hairspray will not keep all the flakes of glitter in place, and may dull the shine.

Glue some glitter on matboard and experiment with it.

[RadPix]

Not hairspray, how about fixatif. If it works for pastels and doesn't muck 'em up, it should work for the dreaded glitter.

[Ron Eggers]

Or maybe just dry mount the glitter.

[HannaFate]

Ron, don't be mean.