morning everyone right today I'm going to show you how I made my shimmering watercolor paints I was in the supermarket a couple of days ago and I saw this I was after another ice cube tray but I found this one isn't that cute I just thought that was really adorable so here we go I've got my supplies these are my mica powders I bought mine from the color Shack on eBay and I'll put their details in the link below I paid eight pounds ninety-nine for a set of twelve and these are the colors that I chose there's some various color ways that you can you can pick I bought two sets I bought some metallics as well and because this ice cube tray has only got fourteen little compartments I've chosen a couple of them the other part of the other pack I've chosen the copper and the gold and so I'm gonna go right ahead okey-dokey and then I'm just going to arrange them so that the colors let's have a look let's see what we've got here we've got lavender what's that one that one's a pale pale purple then we've got pink we've got red in fact I think I'll put the blues next actually one two three four five one two three four five then we'll have blue and then the greens I think then there we go so so that's how I'm going to that's how I'm going to do it so right I've couple that the supplies I've got is that a jar of tap water but mine is warm I'm pretty sure I use cold last time but I'm going to try it with warm water and see what happens and I've got gum arabic mine is the Windsor Newton gum arabic in liquid form but you could use powder as well it really it really doesn't matter sir and then I've got a lollipop stick just to scoop the powder out and into the tray so I'm going to scoop a fair amount of of this into into the Train but I think I'm just going to use what I for what I've got left and I'll switch off because I'm going to sort of tip them all in and then I'll come back and I'll do the do the next part right then my powders are now in the trays so I'm going to add the gum arabic next if I can get the lid off that is and you don't need much of this just a couple of drops and let me just load up my pip hat and I'm just going to add a couple of drops one two now the lady that I bought these off when I emailed her to tell her what they had done with them and she said that I didn't need to add the gum arabic because there's already a fixative in these but it worked for me last time and the youtube videos that i've seen elsewhere have got gum arabic in a mine all set hard and so i'm going to continue to do it the same way that i did it before if it ain't broke don't fix it as they say and I've got a feeling that it was three drops I added to the last ones I made so I'm going to add one more drop to each of each of these so that's three drops of gum arabic i'm adding here right back on that and then i'm going to add my water and i'm just going to start off just adding three three drops will give it a stir and we'll see if that's that's enough and i can tell already that i'm going to need more than that you've got to look mix it into into a paste note still need a little bit more remember you can always add more but you can't take away so you don't want it to too runny and there we go I can tell now that perhaps the right consistency so load up my tipet again so I'm going to start off with six one two three four six try that and you can do this with sort of mica powders that that you buy on eBay or even the cheap mica eyeshadow that you get from the pound shop or dollar store if you're using eyeshadow you will definitely need to add gum arabic because that's what fixes it it's a fixative and I have heard and some people using future floor polish now that's difficult to get hold of in the UK you can order it on the internet but it's not readily available in the shops not that i have seen anyway and I did look when I was some making these the first time around and I ended up investing in the gum gum arabic I think my gum arabic was found eight or nine pounds for the jar it's much cheaper in powdered form that me being impatient wanted to do it straight away and that was all I could get in the art shop and I'm just going to continue doing this with all of them and then I'll come back and show you what they look like when they're when they're finished see you all again a bit later so again just showing you the consistency there lavender one is now now done and that's the consistency that that you want so just keep going adding water little by little until you achieve that striping off the side right let's do some more and here they are all finished I've used a baby wipe just to go over the top of the tray just to clear away any mess that I made and I made quite a bit and just be really careful when you start stirring I started stirring too quickly and you saw the powder just spray everywhere so don't be as gung-ho as I was the other thing is that you could say that I used way more than three drops of water I'd got it into my head that I'd use three of gum arabic and three of water with the last ones I've made but I clearly use more than that so I've used probably on average about 12 drops of water for each tray some some slightly more depending on how much powder I had in them but just start off slowly because you can always add more but you can't take it away once you've done three or four you'll get used to what you're doing and then you'll whiz through the rest this whole palette took me probably about 20-25 minutes but this is the consistency that you're looking for it's sort of like thick heavy cream but you'll know you'll get used to it at all that the powder will just dissolve into the mic into the gum arabic and the water and then you've just got to be patient this will take probably two or three days now for it to set and before I can I can use it the other thing I wanted to mention I said that I had paid eight or nine pounds for the gum arabic and i found the price tag on the back it was six pounds 75 so no in there is expensive as I thought and the mica powders I've had two trays now of watercolors out of each little pot of my compadre had the one that I made before and now now this one so I don't think that's too bad and then fun to make as well so hope you give it a try and have fun take care have a great weekend everyone