{Colour Blast} Hello Treasure ~ A Scrapbook Layout

Hey, hey scrappers and happy Winter!! I am here today kicking off the June challenge which sure had me testing my boundaries!! 

Here is my page that I created.

And in case you have not yet seen it the June challenge is here

And my process video can be seen below

Before I started this page I had the colour scheme in mind of black and white and yellow. So I tested a couple of different Colour Blast products for the yellow I wanted and the techniques I had in mind and settled on the ever fun Colour Shimmer Dusts!

Before I got into my 4 different techniques I used a dry brush (about 1") and the White Heavy Gesso and applied a thin coat over the area on my yellow cardstock where I was going to do most of my designing.

After that was dry I activated my Colour Shimmer Dusts in Midnight and Sunflower, grabbed my extra "tools" and supplies and got to work.

I started with Sunshine Colour Paste. Swoon! I just LOVE this colour - in all of it's beautiful mediums!! I paired that with a stencil and some clear acetate hearts in  my stash (thank you Michelle Grant for your inspiration!!) and left that to dry over night.

Next, my first technique with the Colour Shimmer Dusts - stamping!! I simply used a paint brush and painted the Midnight Colour Shimmer Dust onto the stamp randomly and then mooshed my cardstock onto the stamp. 

There was still quiet a fair amount of colour on the stamp so I flipped the stamp over and randomly stamped over area where the white gesso was.

I used my heat tool to speed up the drying process, I was eager to move onto my next step! This time I used the Sunflower Colour Shimmer Dust and the ever popular (and super easy!!) smooshing technique. A little of the activated colour painted onto some old packaging, flipped over and smooshed!

Be warned with adding the wet media over the top of what I had stamped my colour did re-activate! I had paper towels handy and quickly dabbed up the wetness which left me with a really cool effect and really soft yellow colour. You can see that better in the close up photo's!

Technique 3 was splatters. Again I used a paint brush and splattered all around my page in both the Midnight and Sunflower colours. I used quiet a small brush for the midnight splatters. This I left to dry naturally as I had had another idea of what I was going to embellish with!

Finally technique 4 - painting!! I have again pulled out this awesome stamp set and settled on my title being "Hello Treasure" knowing I wanted to paint with the Shimmer Dusts. Another really simple technique and here's a little tip - if you are doing this use watercolour paper!!! If you don't the colour bleeds completely out of the lines!! Once this was dry I fussy cut this out and my other stamped word.

Time to put it all together! I've used those acetate hearts, a doily cut in half, some black and white tissue paper, some enamel shapes, a wooden button and a gorgeous yellow charm from Charms Creations. Oh, and white thread!

Me being me, I pieced everything before I stuck anything and decided just before sticking that I wanted some white splatters and my go to right now is some watered down Heavy White Gesso. 

I really love how this page came together and I love the challenge this month - it really got me thinking!!

For those of you wondering this is NOT a current photo! This photo was taken in August 2012, 5 days before our youngest was born and like so many photo's from my "I don't think I'll ever scrapbook" days has not yet been scrapped.

Here are a couple of close ups, the shimmer is really hard to get on camera but I tried!!

I hope this inspires you to play along with the June challenge - it is a super fun one and definitely a challenge!!

Until next time, happy scrapping!!

Mel

x

{Colour Blast} Enjoying These Awesome Moments ~ A Scrapbook Layout

Hello Colour Blasters, how are you this Saturday morning? Winter is getting ever closer and I hope you are keeping warm, if it is even cold where you are!!

I got a new stencil recently and had a play with it on another page which is totally where I got the idea for this page from! 

Here is a little looksy at what I have created

And here are my step-by-step instructions

First up I grabbed a piece of white (textured of course, it is my fave!) card stock and applied a quick, light coat of White Heavy Gesso across the entire page. Next up some stamping! I've used a couple of stamps that have not seen ink and some black Versafine ink right down the middle of page in a vertical column.

When that was dry I added some light modelling paste through my stencil (I seriously LOVE this new stencil!) and left to dry naturally.

I have been meaning to do this technique for AGES. Actually, to re-phrase, I have been meaning to do this technique and not hate what I created so I once again pulled out my Colour Shimmer Dusts in Peacock, Cobalt, Duke and Navy. I sprinkled the tiniest amount of each colour randomly across the stencilled background. You probably can't even see it in my photo but it is there - take a close look on the edge on the right hand side especially!

Add water. Yep, it's as simple as that! Add water and watch the magic happen! Tip and tilt and turn the page to get the colours to move and blend and then dry. I did use my heat tool and I did apply extra colours in a couple of places by simply adding a tiny bit more dust and activating with water. I LOVE this background!

**TIP** 

If you are anything like me and make a MESS when you do this grab a paper towel and/or a baby wipe and where you have colour you don't want you can very easily wipe/rub/dab it away. This will only work if you have applied the gesso in the first place but the excess colour where I don't want it is often why I bin my "failed" attempts!!

I knew that I had a stamp set to use for my title so decided to build my own title/journal card and use it as I would a second photo. I added my stamped title and then my journalling and had some left over space so added another stamped word which I used a little paint brush and the Peacock Colour Shimmer Dust to paint - messy style!! Oh, and splatters on the card ;)

Time to play with layers!! I layered up my photo and title card onto a piece of patterned paper (the photo is popped up), messed up the edges, added a notebook edge scrap of paper and then dove into my Cocoa Vanilla Boys Rule collection for a few stickers and a flair badge to finish of the embellishing.

I added a little more stamping over the top of the colour and paste, I felt the stamping was a little lost. You can also see I have layered some white cotton behind all of my layers, used my tiny attacher for some tiny details and threaded my tag with some black and white twine.

I am so happy with the end project having had no idea what photo I was using to start with!! I have the most fun while experimenting with products and seeing what they do so pull out something you have maybe tried and "failed" at before and get playing!!

You can very faintly see some of the gorgeous shimmer you get when you use the shimmer dusts - it's super hard to capture it flatteringly on camera!!

Oh, I also have a process video for this page just hit play below and enjoy!

Please share your latest creations over in the Colour Blast Creative Corner FB group, we do love seeing all of your creativity! Until next time, get messy and happy scrapping!!

Melinda

x

{Colour Blast} Gel Plate + Colour Shimmer Dust = FUN!

Hello, hello and welcome to my blog today!! Today's share is for Colour Blast and it is more cards!!

I'm going to start this post will a little confession!! Last June I attended the Brisbane Craft Show and purchased a Gel Press plate - I couldn't wait to get home and PLAY!! When I finally did play, let's just say I was less than impressed with my end results so I put the press away with every intention of trying again "one day." Well, that one day is here so I grabbed said gel press, white acrylic paint, ALL of my Colour Shimmer Dusts, brayer, stencils and paper and off I went!

I started by mixing my paint with my first colour choice of Peacock Colour Shimmer Dust. I mixed this well with a palette knife and applied to my plate with my brayer. I then grabbed my first piece of cardstock and pressed that straight onto the top rubbing firmly to get an impression.

Depending on how thick you do the paint and how much you press you can get multiple prints from the same paint layer. 

Please remember, I was simply playing and I think I still have a long way to go!! I continued with the same technique a couple of times and then decided to add another colour for another layer.

Next up was Paris Colour Shimmer Dust. I did not clean my "palette" so got a deeper green than the Paris by itself would be. I was having so much fun brayering and pressing that I forgot to get a photo of that particular layer however you can see the colour in the next step.

I decided to try adding a completely different colour and this time grabbed the Sunflower Colour Shimmer Dust and white acrylic. You can see the left overs of the Paris on the plate to the left of the photo.

I added in some stencils using  the stencil almost like a stamp and impressing the stencil into the wet paint, removing the stencil and moving it all around the plate and then doing another impression for another layer of colour.

Each time I changed colour families I cleaned my gel plate. Also when I decided to add in the yellow I actually grabbed some old acetate/packaging to create a palette to mix the colour and apply to my brayer.

I couldn't resist trying some pink so grabbed my Lollipop Colour Shimmer Dust and got mixing. I applied a layer of that to my plate and then did a little experiment. I grabbed my Sunflower Dust and sprinkled that in couple of places on the wet paint on the gel plate, added a small blob of acrylic, brayered that and then did an impression. This gave an intesting, much more saturated, effect to the areas where the Dust hadn't completely mixed in.

By this stage I had done a number of prints and thought I should stop then and see what I had. I had also experimented yesterday to see if I could get my idea of Colour Shimmer Dust and acrylic to work so there a couple of extra book pages I did a couple of extra impressions on those. I chose some of the prints I thought I could work with and cut them down to card front size (10cm x 14.3cm) and here are the bases I cut. I also had enough from one of the prints to do 2 10cm square fronts as well. 

I picked 3 I wanted to work with added a couple of more layers! Starting with Colour Paste in Bling to 2 of the card fronts.

When that was dry (I did give it a bit of a head start with the heat gun!) I added in some stamping with gold ink and also black ink. I also inked around all of the edges of the cards to give them a little bit of a defining edge.

I grabbed a few embellishments from my stash - Charms Creations, D-lish Scraps and Funky Flair Studio's mostly - and stuck those on and mounted my card fronts onto cream card bases.

And a photo of each

If you know me well chances are you can pick my fave is the star one. Do you have a favourite??

I have filmed my process which will give you a better idea of the actual process (and just how messy I got ;) ) which you can see here. 

Now that I have broken the printing plate in I can't wait to do some more playing and printing!! Do you have a gel plate you've been "meaning to get to"? Have a play, it is FUN!!

I hope you enjoyed this and I'd love for you to share if you create something inspired by this so please head over the Colour Blast Creative Corner on FB and share away!!

Until next time, happy scrapping!!

Melinda

{Colour Blast} Kisses Emmy?! ~ A Scrapbook Layout

Hey, hey and happy Saturday!! I am here sharing my latest make for Colour Blast and be warned, this a super bright and fun page!! 

With this page I am telling a bit of a cute & funny story about my big boy and my baby nephew!! My big boy is OBSESSED!! Which, of course, is ADORABLE! On Christmas Day when my sister and her family showed up Jacob totally doted all over his cousin. After most people left Jacob hogged him on the couch and asked him repeatedly for kisses and as we all know kisses from an 8 month old are open mouthed with grabby hands!! But Jacob sat and giggled through it all, he LOVED his cousin's undivided attention!

Enough chatter and here is my page

And my process video

And now, some step-by-steps!!

I grabbed this piece of white card stock (no gesso or anything) that I had previously used to “clean” some stamps from another project and added some more of the same stamp but bigger using my stamping tool (it’s the only stamp block I have big enough for the biggest stitched circle lol) using Versafine black ink. 

Next I activated 2 of my Colour Shimmer Dusts - Amber and Sunflower by adding a little water and some more powder to my little paint palette. 

With my activated colour I used a paintbrush and painted a few of the circles using a fair amount of water to let the colour drip when I tipped the page up. I did dry each circle as I went because I was working on an un-gessoed background and the card stock copes well enough with what I was doing but I wouldn’t want to add to much more water!

Time to build my layers. I pulled out all the yellow and orange ephemera pieces from the collection I was using along with a couple of black & white pieces also. 

At this point I decided to add a bit more to the background. More stamping with black ink. 

And some splatters! I used my pipette (I wanted bigger splats!) and both of the same Colour Shimmer Dusts again - Amber and Sunflower. I also used a paint brush to add lots of little splatters of the Sunflower. I love how using only 2 colours I get so many different variations of the same colour, even in the splatters! I found the Sunflower dried more mustard-y when I dried it with the heat tool and more yellow when I let it air dry!

Time to stick it all down!

And work on my title! I picked some resist alphas and used my Midnight Colour Shimmer Dust to paint them black and also to add some splatters all around my page - remembering to cover my photo!!

I added my journalling and date and my page was done!

I am so pleased with how this came together and would like to share that I got the idea of colouring my circles - I hadn't got that far in my design idea when I stamped a couple of weeks ago - from the talented Marta from Maremi SmallArt on YT.

And here are some close up's of the finished page! I tried REALLY hard to get the shimmer of the dusts but it's tricky to catch on the camera!

I did start this page KNOWING I was challenging myself to use some different colours to what has become my standard choice over the last little while and LOVE the brightness and shimmer I got using the Colour Shimmer Dusts!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you again later in the month!

Melinda
xx