Playing With Pebeo Enamels

Nine new enameled pillboxes

Always on the lookout for exciting new media, I recently discovered and experimented with Pebeo Fantasy Moon and Fantasy Prisme enamels on the clear glass tops of these nine new multi-day pillboxes. I was hoping that the beautiful interactions of these two enamels, as shown above, would also be visible through the underside of the clear glass support. No such luck. The underside only shows where the first colors to hit the glass were added with my disposable pipettes, resulting in much more mundane patterns, bordering on boring! You can see samples of this through the tops of the added clear glass cabochons on the pillboxes above. The undersides of these cabochons were quite beautiful, but unfortunately had to be hidden for this use.

Not being able to protect the enameled side of the glass by putting it face down onto the pillbox bases, which was my original intent, I had to somehow protect the enameled surface from the wear and tear it would get with everyday use. This led me to experiment with a new product, Ice Resin, which worked fairly well to add a domed, crystal clear, jewelry quality glazed layer on top of the enameled surfaces. I first glued the cabochons onto the enamel, noting as it dried that the glue would lift the enamel off if messed with, so I had to be neat about it. Then I added the Ice Resin using disposable plastic pipettes, which made the application easy and fairly neat. I believe I invented this application method, as I haven’t yet seen it mentioned anywhere online for use with Ice Resin application. I like the way the resin semi-embeds the cabochons, definitely securing them tightly, in addition to the glue. The resin also magnifies the design a bit and makes it seem three-dimensional. The resin surface is also very hard and has a nice feel in hand.

I’m a big fan of instant gratification when I create art, so I was impatient to complete these pillboxes. Although the enameling process was fairly quick to gratify me with the resultant beautiful designs, I had to let them dry for at least two days before I could add the resin coating. Then the resin layer had to harden for at least 6 hours before the tops could be handled. Then the box tops were glued onto the pillbox base boxes and allowed to set for 24 hours. So creating these pillboxes has been a long and fairly expensive process, which is reflected in their higher prices relative to other pillboxes in these sizes on my website. Still, you are definitely getting an amazing work of art on each of these pill boxes, and the resin layer makes them even more beautiful and durable.

The Pebeo Fantasy Moon enamels create round patterns on the surface as they dry, and they resist spreading into the Fantasy Prisme enamels. The Pebeo Fantasy Prisme enamels, however, like to spread into the Moon enamels, creating feather-like fingers that are positively mesmerizing to behold. I made sure I added metallic silver, gold, and bronze enamels to these box top designs, as those colors add enough  shine and iridescence to satisfy my appetite for bling.

When I was working with the Pebeo Fantasy paints, I also put them on the back of some clear glass round, heart-shaped, and small teardrop shaped cabochons. Watch for a future blog post on how those experiments have been turned into unique creation components. In the meantime, check out or purchase one or more of these new pillboxes on my website and/or leave me a comment here to let me know what you think of them. Should I make more pillboxes like these?