Just wanted to show off the gingerbread town wreath I created with GF cut acrylics. I am pleased with how it turned out. Hope everyone is enjoying the season making crafts and making merry!
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That is very festive.
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That’s lovely!
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Very cute, did you use “gingerbread brown” acrylic or paint them?
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So unique. Love those little houses!
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Thank you. I used two acrylic colors in the gingerbread. The bottom layer is terracotta pearl from Galaxy Plastics, and the top layer is opaque khaki from Tap Plastics (colors 90 and 61 on my acrylic palette suppliers list. The white trim was painted on - etched in GF then painted with a paint pen before removing the mask.
I didn’t think those colors would show up on the copper tinsel wreath (Vickermans), but they did and look great.
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Love this! Anything with tiny houses calls to me.
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Love it!
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This is adorable!
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I love the houses!! Also enjoyed the link to look at your supplier post again!
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Very nice, I love your colour choices 
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These little houses are adorable! Great job!
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Here’s a closeup of the houses. Two layers of etched acrylic, sandwiched with acrylic weld. They’re about 2.5 inches x 3 inches.
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What. a neat idea. I love the villages, but always wanted to find a way to make it so it didn’t take up so much space. This is a fun way to do that. I can see adding a whole bunch of other things to the village, trains, tress, etc.
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Very nice!
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Yes! I love the idea of other fun things! Trains, etc. The nice thing about a GF is how tiny you can make stuff, which just leaves room for ever more cool goodies!
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Love these! And love the supply list. I’m still working on the gluing part of acrylic. I tend to get some messiness that is hard to clean up. I see that you use acrylic weld. What is your process for a clean glue up? I’d love some tips and tricks if you have them. Acrylic to acrylic and acrylic to plywood. Really beautiful work!
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Thank you!
I use two kinds of adhesive, both solvent bonds. The thin-bodied acrylic weld (A) I use when there are two glossy surfaces sandwiched cleanly together. The surfaces must be smooth/clean with no gap between. The medium-bodied cement (B) for pieces that need to endure more stress, such as jewelry or smaller pieces with slightly uneven, textured, or matte surfaces.
For me, the two most important tricks I’ve learned with both kinds of adhesives are use less and let them dry completely. The less product used, the less I’ll need to clean up.
When using the liquid weld (A), press the pieces together (with a fingertip, weight, or clamp) and dot the seam with the needle dropper in several places around the edge. If you use a magnifier, you can see the liquid get drawn into and along that seam with capillary action. Using the lightest touch this way, you will not have the weld go anywhere except into the area where the two pieces meet. If there’s dribbles or pooling outside the seam, you’ve used too much. After dotting all around the edge, let it do its work. It’s a solvent, so it melts a bit of plastic from each side of the surface, and those dissolved plastics must bond and re-harden. So let it dry completely before handling. Also, if you get droplets or puddles of the thin solvent on a surface of your acrylic, don’t wipe it. It melts the acrylic quickly, so wiping will damage the surface of your acrylic. Just let it evaporate and dry completely. There may be a faint outline where it pooled and dried, but that will be less unsightly than smeared acrylic.
Using the medium-bodied cement (B) is similar in that it’s solvent-base and melts the surface of the acrylic to form a bond. It contains dissolved plastic itself, so it will also be able to fill gaps and form a stronger bond. With this cement, you clamp or press the pieces together after you dot the adhesive, rather than before. Again, less is more. It takes a surprisingly small amount of this stuff to work. So use small dots rather than dollops. You want little to no cement oozing out from the seam once they’re clamped. I suggest using a magnifier to practice this technique with some scrap acrylic pieces (transparent acrylic works really well for this, as you’ll be able to gauge how big of a dot will cover an area). And again, let. It. Dry. Don’t be tempted to “test” the bond unless you’re practicing. Don’t be tempted to wipe away excess while it’s wet. Just let the item sit and allow the weld do its work. The cement dries clear and glossy, so tiny mistakes are less noticeable (and your mistakes will be tiny because you’re using less product).
The nice part about “less is more”: if after the item has dried the pieces have not adhered or you find an area that’s gapping apart, it’s easy enough to re-adhere them.
Clean-up. There should be a minimal amount of clean-up necessary if you’re not using too much adhesive. But on those occasions where the adhesive has made a blob, I’ll work on it after it’s completely dry. If possible, I’ll whittle the blob off with an xacto blade. If there are blobs around the edge and not on the front surface, I’ll buff that smooth using acrylic fingernail buffers (C - 280 320 grit emery). This will leave a matte surface, so if you want it glossy it has to be polished. I don’t have any experience yet with polishing acrylic. Even though I know it can be done, I imagine you can’t get into small gaps well.
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Great tips, thanks. I have been slowly learning how little bonding agent it actually takes to hold acrylic to acrylic. I still need more practice, but I am getting better.
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