Fun/Unique Acrylic Sources in the US?

[ChristyM]

Yeah, in this case the vendor is on aliexpress and on Etsy. Since Etsy did away with their materials marketplace (which I thought was fantastic), I don’t mind things like this on there. I have a problem with finished products that aren’t handmade, though.

[ChristyM]

The packages arrived… Just over a week from China! Unfortunately, I just left for a long weekend in Quebec so I haven’t seen them yet.

[kittski]

Very quick shipping indeed! Let us know how they look when ya get home.

[ChristyM]

The acrylic is stunning (and I was shocked by how quickly they arrived), but I do have some comments I’ll share below.

Here are a few of the mineral crystal samples:

And some of the ripple glitter. These are my favorites… they are gorgeous in person.

They have a great textured appearance, but they are completely smooth. The design is only on one side. These are roughly 4" samples and they clearly aren’t treated quite as well as full-size sheets.

The downsides:

• There is no masking and some of the samples have scratches and very minor chipping along the edges. I did order a regular size sheet of the iridescent acrylic and it has the plastic masking.
• Because these are samples, they have sticker labels with the color. The stickers don’t peel off easily (to put it mildly) and without masking, it’s going to be nearly impossible to remove without damage. I wish they were on the back at least.
• They are packaged together in cardboard boxes that aren’t thin, but aren’t shipping weight, either. These are then placed in bubble mailers. Mine arrived OK (other than what I mentioned above), but there seems like potential for more damage. The set with scratches don’t completely fill their box, so they had extra room to move around.

[arh2]

Thanks for the photos - now I want some!

[davidgal2]

What does the back look like?

[ChristyM]

I paired each pattern with one in a similar color scheme, but they are not the same patterns. Front on the left, back on the right. The backs don’t look bad, but they don’t look like a finish design, either. Some are better than others. The bottom left is probably the best, where the bottom right is the worst.

For more comparison, the bottom right is the one that says Ocean above. The upper tile is the Sky Blue from above. And the bottom left is the darker purple in the first picture above.

[davidgal2]

The backs look like a totally different piece. I would think that the difference could be used to your advantage, like having 2 types of acrylic in one. Thanks for showing the backs.

[ChristyM]

I’m not sure you’d want most of them highlighted, but they will look fine on the back.

I definitely want more of the samples at some point. They’re going to be fun to play with.